ANCASTER, ONTARIO. The Hamilton Bulldogs were back on the road for the second time in three days, this time travelling North to Barrie to face the Colts for the first time this season. Hamilton was fresh off a massive shootout victory Tuesday night in Peterborough, while the Colts were trying to shake off a 6-1 defeat last Friday courtesy of the Ottawa 67s.
The opening frame was chalked full of action, with a total of seven goals being scored throughout the first twenty minutes. The Colts kicked it off just six minutes in with defenseman Callum Chisholm continuing his hot streak, ripping one upstairs short side over the shoulder of Matteo Drobac giving the home side the 1-0 lead. A short 90 seconds later, Bulldogs forward Patrick Thomas was able to get a stick on a Gavin White point shot, tipping it past the Colts netminder Anson Thornton to tie the game 1-1 on Thomas’ 3rd of the season. The Bulldogs took advantage of their offense finding its rhythm courtesy with Jorian Donovan flying into the attack at 10:33 capitalizing on an exchange from Logan Morrison & Avery Hayes to give the Bulldogs a 2-1 lead on Donovan’s 2nd of the season. With the Bulldogs on the power-play at 12:16, Gavin White fed Avery Hayes whose shot got through to Logan Morrison on the right cashing his 5th of the season, doubling the lead to 3-1. The Colts responded scoring two quick goals in a mere 19 seconds to tie the game at 3. But the goal scoring spree didn’t stop there in the opening frame. After Florian Xhekaj held the puck up in his skates in a strength battle out front of the Barrie goal, Brenden Anderson was able to shovel a shot past the Thornton for his 1st of the season and reclaiming the Bulldogs lead at 18:09, giving the Bulldogs a 4-3 lead to the intermission.
Adversity was faced down in the second period as Bulldogs rookie Adrian Rebelo received a 5-minute major and game misconduct for kneeing at 6:43, leaving the Bulldogs down to 11 forwards. Hamilton garnered the best opportunity of the power-play through a shorthanded 2-on-1 opportunity with Avery Hayes carrying the puck over the blue line and feeding Lawson Sherk with a beautiful through the legs pass which was denied by Thornton. Just seconds after a late period power-play for the Bulldogs ended, Ryan Humphrey found space in between the Colts defense and ripped one past Thornton giving the Bulldogs a 5-3 lead at 15:36. With an assist on the Humphrey goal, Logan Morrison reached 197 career points, passing Brandon Saigeon for 3rd in all-time Bulldogs scoring. It didn’t take long for Barrie to respond however, with a puck thrown into the slot from a bad angle and took a bounce past Drobac’s skate to narrow the Bulldogs lead to 5-4 through 40 minutes of play.
The third period got off to a controversial start as Ryan Humphrey was given a 5-minute major and game misconduct for a blindside on a shoulder to shoulder check, leaving the Bulldogs with 10 forwards. Though the Bulldogs killed off the major, Barrie went back to the power-play just before the midway point of the period and capitalized with defenseman Connor Punnett blasting the puck into the net from the point for his fourth of the season, tying the game 5-5. After a missed hit from behind call on Bulldogs Patrick Thomas, the game went back to 4-on-4 yet again and Beau Jelsma took advantage of a fallen Bulldogs defender, scoring on a breakaway to take a 6-5 lead. The Colts added another with an empty netter and won the game by a score of 7-5.
The Bulldogs are back at home this Saturday afternoon, November 12th for TiCats night, hosting the Mississauga Steelheads with a 4:00pm puck drop.
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