Coming into tonight's game, expectations were high. The Barons were getting back 5 call ups from the Oilers, they had the majority of their scoring threats back, and they were riding a great last two weeks of the regular season. Unfortunately for the Barons, the Hamilton Bulldogs didn't want to cooperate.
The game started out in favor of the Bulldogs. Kevin Montgomery took an interference penalty 46 seconds into the game. Nigel Dawes would continue his scoring from the regular season and put the Bulldogs up 1-0 just 1:38 into the game on the Power Play. Despite a few scoring chances for the Barons, the Bulldogs would make their chances count. Olivier Fortier and Ryan Russell would each score in the 1st and the teams would head into the locker rooms with the Bulldogs up 3-0.
After giving up 3 goals on 6 shots in the 1st, Barons coach Todd Nelson would pull Jeff Deslauriers from goal in favor of Martin Gerber. Martin Gerber would help temper the Bulldogs offense, but not enough. At the 7:23 mark, Ben Ondrus would get a pass from along the endboards by Ryan O'Marra and would take it to the net and squeeze the puck past Hamilton goaltender Drew MacIntyre to bring the Barons within 2. It unfortunately wouldn't last long as Aaron Palushaj would put the Bulldogs back up by 3 after receiving along the goal line and blast it by Gerber on the PP. As the 2nd period was winding it's way down, Greg Stewart would wind up taking a boarding major and receive a Game Misconduct at the 19:36 mark. After 40 minutes of play, the Barons would head to the locker room down 4-1.
The Barons would start the 3rd period shorthanded as they attempted to kill the Stewart major. 1:29 later, the Bulldogs would continue where they left off and make it 5-2 from Joe Stejskal after a crazy screen play. 5 and a half minutes later, the Barons would try to put a band-aid on the wound as Bryan Helmer received an awesome pass from Linus Omark and make it 5-2. Unfortunately, the Barons wouldn't be able to muster anything else and that would be your final score as the Bulldogs take a 1-0 series lead.
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The biggest thing from this game, the pair of Petry and Plante does not work. I'm still confused as to why Nelson broke up Plante-Teubert when they had been doing so well. Saturday will have a few lineup changes, I'm sure. The best forward line of the night had to be Omark-Arcobello-Hartikainen. They did the best to make chances and came close a number of times. McDonald-Moran-Giroux had a few chances, but if the Barons want to have any chance of advancing, these guys need to step it back up to where they were last weekend. Game 2 is always a very important game and the Barons will have to show up more on Saturday than they did this game.
Barons shots: 8-12-6-26 PP: 0/3
Bulldogs shots: 6-14-9-29 PP: 3/6
Lines:
Colin McDonald - Brad Moran - Alexandre Giroux
Linus Omark - Mark Arcobello - Teemu Hartikainen
Milan Kytnar - Chris VandeVelde - Tanner House
Greg Stewart - Ryan O'Marra - Ben Ondrus
Bryan Helmer - Kevin Montgomery
Alex Plante - Jeff Petry
Jake Taylor - Richard Petiot
-Written by Eric Rodgers-
