Two games of interest on Thursday night in the OHL.
First, the Belleville Bulls fell 5-1 to the Petes in Peterborough. Meanwhile, in Windsor, a pair of first place teams hooked up in a game that saw the Barrie Colts hand the Spitfires a 4-2 defeat. Also the game featured former Pete Zack Kassian making his Windsor debut with a bang. We’ll get to that in a minute
Belleville Falls 5-1 in Peterborough
The young team that looked so good against Sudbury in their previous game looked almost as bad as the Wolves on Thursday night. The Bulls had a decent first period and were able to take a 1-0 lead on an Andy Bathgate goal, in the opening minute of the second period, but then fell apart giving up five unanswered goals.
The biggest obstacle for this team to overcome in their race for the playoffs will be consistency. That’s a tall order for such a young team and no doubt that we’ll probably see a few more games similar to this one along the way, but if the Bulls can avoid falling into a slump and keep these poor efforts down to a minimum, the playoffs are attainable.
On the flip side, if the Bulls do miss the playoffs this season, it’ll be courtesy of the Petes. The teams have played five times with Peterborough picking up wins in each contest. Two games that could really stand out are the home opener in which the Petes scored late in regulation to steal a 3-2 win and the December 9th game which was decided on a controversial game-winning shootout goal that featured a stop/start from Pat Daley. That’s two maybe three possible points lost that could loom huge come the end of the season. Not to mention the 1-0 loss in Peterborough on New Year’s eve and a 4-3 shootout loss on November 4th. That’s another couple of attainable points that got weren’t put in the bank.
Still, things could be worse. This team, even at such a young age, has the skill level to get to the playoffs. That much was made clear in the Sudbury game. I really like what I see from Richard Panik, He’s got good moves. drives to the net and he cares about his defensive responsibilities, playing a good two-way game. He’ll be a good mentor for the young forwards finding their way in the league.
And Braden Corbeth should be back from his broken jaw soon. His speed will really help. Imagine him and Aleardi on a line together. Who do you put out with those two and will he be able to keep up??
I’m looking forward to seeing how the Bulls rebound against a good team like the London Knights on Saturday. Should be a good indicator of what this team is capable of when the chips are down.
Barrie beats Windsor 4-2
While Belleville and Peterborough were battling, the (sort of) new-look Windsor Spitfires were facing Barrie in a battle of the two top teams in the league. Windsor picked up three former Bulls and one Pete before the trade deadline, but only one of those players was in the lineup on Thursday. Philipp Grubauer backed up Troy Passingham, Marc Cantin was suspended and Stephen Johnston is still hurt. The only newcomer to suit up for Windsor was former Pete Zach Kassian, and he only got in half a game.
The big story of the night wasn’t that Barrie handed the Spitfires a 4-2 loss in Windsor. Instead, the big story was a Kassian hit on Matt Kennedy. The hit got national attention (on TSN, see video above) and now Kassian is suspended indefinitely and will meet with David Branch early next week.
It’ll be interesting to see how Branch handles this. In my opinion, this hit is worse than the Liambas hit on Fanelli. Kassian went hunting for the hit through the neutral zone, hit an unsuspecting guy who didn’t even have the puck, and left his feet. Kassian probably deserves to be suspended to for the remainder of the season, but will his “big name” status makes a difference? What about the fact that he plays for a big-market team like Windsor?
A lot of people think Windsor got fleeced on the Kassian deal, and now he might be gone for the year. Windsor fans are already panicking. Could they be ripe for an upset in the playoffs? We’ll just have to wait and see.
Never a dull week in the OHL!
