THUNDER BAY – The semifinals are set at the TELUS Cup.
The Calgary Buffaloes doubled up the Halifax Macs 5-2 on Friday afternoon at Fort William Gardens, earning the idle Tisdale Trojans the fourth and final playoff berth at the national midget AAA hockey championship.
Halifax was in a must-win situation, but slipped to 1-3-1, good for fifth place at the six-team tournament, but not enough to advance.
Tisdale, who earlier in the day lost 4-2 to the Toronto Young Nationals, finished at 2-3-0, while Calgary took third at 3-2-0, losing the second-place tiebreaker with Toronto because of their head-to-head record.
The Trojans will take on top-ranked Magog Cantonniers in Saturday’s semifinal, while Toronto and Calgary will compete in the other. The Young Nationals captured the first meeting between the two teams, winning 3-1 on Tuesday.
Braden Plaschewsky, who slid the puck through the skates of Halifax goalie Liam Oxner just 58 seconds into the contest, said hitting the medal round on a winning note is a great momentum boost, knowing they’ll have to contend with Toronto’s speed for any hope at a spot in Sunday’s final.
“We wanted to come in strong today and start strong early – and we did that. We got a couple of goals early, which was great. We wanted to finish well too, because tomorrow’s going to be a tough game.”
After a slight hitch that saw a desperate Macs squad with three great chances, but still come up empty, the Buffaloes offence jolted back into high gear – thanks in part to a couple of defensive miscues by the Macs.
Justin Ross pounced on a giveaway in front of and fired it high over Oxner’s shoulder for a 2-0 advantage at 9:44 of the first and less than two minutes later the Halifax goaltender couldn’t cover a puck in a crowd and Marco Lopez made him pay, shoveling it home.
Dylan James added to the lead 69 seconds into the second, grabbing Sam Witt’s rebound and punching it home.
Calgary coach Brent Harrison said it was nice to get an early goal, but he wasn’t thrilled with how the Buffaloes responded over the next few minutes.
“I felt like we kind of let up after we got that first one and then they pushed hard. Our goalie had to make a bunch of big saves and then we were able to get the second and third goal pretty quick, which helped us get the momentum,” Harrison said.
The Mac’s attack wasn’t finished. In fact it was just getting started.
Halifax’s Liam Keeping whipped a wrist shot from just inside the blue-line that cut the Calgary lead to 4-1 late in the second and Zach Byard scored on a similar play 8:09 into the third.
But it was all the offence could muster.
The Macs pulled Oxner with 4:18 to play, needing a win to advance, but it was Calgary’s Heath Armstrong who scored into the empty net in a 4-on-6 situation.
Harrison said he’s got a confident group that’s excited to get out of the round-robin.
“That’s the first step in this tournament. We’ve got to play a rematch with Toronto. We weren’t happy with the way we played in that game and I think we’re going to have a better effort this time,” he said. “I just didn’t feel that we had our legs under us at the time. It was the second game of the tournament and we didn’t play our best game.
“We can play a lot better than we did in that game.”
Oxner made 36 saves while Calgary's Garin Bjorkland stopped 29 of 31 shots he faced.
Saturday’s semifinals are scheduled for 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. at Fort William Gardens.
FIRST PERIOD
Scoring: 1. Calgary, Plaschewsky (Shostak) 0:58. 2. Calgary, Ross 3 (E. King, C.King) 9:44. 3. Calgary, Lopez 1 (Benoit) 11:07. Penalties: Byard HFX (slashing) 11:40, Grubbe CGY (holding) 14:52,
SECOND PERIOD
Scoring: 4. Calgary, James (Witt, Grubbe) 1:09. 5. Halifax, Keeping 2 (Watt, Byard) 18:47 pp. Penalties: Zayat CGY (hit to head) 10:05, Witt CGY (hit to head, double minor) 14:18
THIRD PERIOD
Scoring: 6. Halifax, Byard (Welsh, Comeau) 8:09 pp. 7. Calgary, Armstrong 2 () 17:48 sh en. Penalties: Kline HFX () 2:24, Patterson CGY (hooking) 6:51, E. King CGY (cross checking) 16:40,
GAME DATA – SOG – Halifax 9-11-11-31, Calgary 16-10-15-41; Power plays (goals-chances) – Halifax (2-5), Calgary (0-1); Goaltenders – Halifax: Liam Oxner, Calgary: Garin Bjorkland.
