PENALTY SHOT SENDS CANADA EAST THROUGH TO FINAL

A penalty shot. A berth in the World Junior A Challenge final came down to a third period penalty shot. Louke Oakley converted the opportunity, sending Canada East through to the Championship game for a second consecutive year with a 2-1 victory over Russia.

The game was a back-and-forth affair, with good scoring chances for both sides. Canada dominated 12-7 on the shot-clock in the first period, with most of those shots coming during three power plays.

Canada East opened the scoring at the 16:24 mark of the second period, shorthanded, against the vaunted Russian powerplay. Canada’s Mike McLaughlin (Seaforth, ON/ Aurora, OPJHL) managed to chip the puck out of the zone to Jordan Watts (Oakville, ON/ Aurora, OPJHL) who was in full flight, pulling past the Russian defencemen and going in alone on Russian goaltender Alexander Pechurskiy. Watts went high glove side with a quick wrist shot, sending the partisan Trail crowd into a frenzy,

Defenceman Dmitri Kulikov had Russia’s best scoring chance in the second, taking a quick one-timer from the slot that goaltender Bryan Gillis (Elmsdale, NS/ Antigonish, MJAHL) just managed to kicked aside.

Russia was finally able to solve Gillis at 10:09 of the third period, on a bullet from Pavel Chernov from the high slot that went in just under the crossbar. The game was all even with less than 10 minutes to play.

With six minutes to play, Canada East was awarded a penalty shot after a Russian defender closed his hand on the puck in the crease during a goalmouth scramble. Louke Oakley (Whitby, ON/ Bowmanville, OPJHL) started going to his backhand but stopped and slid the puck under Pechurskiy for the go-ahead marker.

Russia’s Kirill Petrov came within inches of tying the game and scoring the most spectacular goal at this year’s World Junior A Challenge with less that 90 seconds to play in the game, splitting the defence and firing the puck just over the crossbar.

Canada East ended up handing Russia it’s only two defeats during this particular trip to Canada, also handing them a 4-3 exhibition loss in Trail a week ago on Saturday.

The Championship Game goes at 7:30 PST at Trail’s Cominco Arena on Sunday November 11th. The game will be broadcast on tape delay by TSN/RDS. Check local listings for game time in your area.