THUNDER BAY – The Thunder Bay Kings have struggled to score goals at this week’s 2017 All Ontario Bantam AAA Championship.
Owen Perala helped them snap out of the slump on Tuesday, scoring twice to pace the Kings to a 2-2 draw against the Cambridge Hawks.
“I thought we played good. We moved the puck well, got down the wing and laid some bodies,” said Perala, who opened the scoring with a dribbler at the 12-minute mark of the opening period, the puck rolling through the legs of Cambridge goalie Nick Clay.
It was the first time in three games to Kings had scored more than a single goal in a game, after a 1-1 draw against Ottawa on Monday, followed that night by a 4-0 drubbing at the hands of the North Bay Trappers.
Perala, a 6-foot-2 behemoth, wasn’t taking any of the credit.
“My linemates, they set me up pretty good for that,” he said.
It was just what Kings coach Ed Atwill had asked Perala to do, as he struggled to find ways to get the offensive fires going.
“I talked to him before the game and I just said it needs to be more straight lines,” Atwill said. “For a big body I said we’ve got to get more guys to the net and that’s what happens. When he gets to the net, he’s a very hard man to handle.
“He did that today very well.”
The Hawks, coached by former NHLer Scott Walker, whose son Cooper skates for Cambridge, put on a dominating performance in the second period, out-shooting Thunder Bay 11-3. But they only managed to put one puck past Kings goalie Stephan Bourgeois, Ryan Wilkinson evening the score 1-1 with 64 seconds to play in the period, tipping home a Kent Cummings blast from just inside the blue-line.
Perala put the Kings in front again midway through the final stanza, but the Hawks kept pressing and tied things up again 91 seconds later after Bourgeois got caught out of position trying to play the puck behind his net.
Bourgeois never got set and Ben McFarlane spun and fired quickly to knot the score at two.
Atwill wasn’t about to find fault with his goalies, whose wandering ways have cost the Kings a couple of goals already.
“In the end it’s about development. We want them to be able to play the puck and more often than not it really helps us get it out of our end. We’re not too worried about that. He played a great game, a very strong game,” Atwill said.
Bourgeois made 21 stops in the matinee affair, while Clay turned aside 15 of the 17 shots he faced, including a last-second breakaway by Mason Bazaluk as time ran out in the third.
The Kings are in a four-way tie for third place with two points, a grouping that includes Cambridge (0-1-2), Ottawa (0-1-2) and York-Simcoe (1-1-0). Thunder Bay plays Toronto (3-0-0) and Fort Frances (0-2-0) on Wednesday. Cambridge takes on York-Simcoe and North Bay.
FIRST PERIOD
Scoring: 1. Thunder Bay, Perala 1 (Hensrud, Campbell) 12:00 Penalties: None.
SECOND PERIOD
Scoring: 2. Cambridge, Wilkinson (Cummings, Serpa) 13:56. Penalties: Pineau TB (tripping) 2:13, McFarlane CAM (slashing) 7:40.
THIRD PERIOD
Scoring: 3. Thunder Bay, Perala (Campbell, Hensrud) 6:30. 4. Cambridge, McFarlane (McMullen) 8:01. Penalties:
GAME DATA – SOG – Thunder Bay 5-3-7-17, Cambridge 4-11-8-23; Power plays (goals-chances) – Thunder Bay (0-1), Cambridge (0-1); Goaltenders – Thunder Bay: Stephan Bourgeois, Cambridge: Nick Clay; A: 350 (estimated).
