NOEL SCORES TWICE AS RED DOUBLES UP WHITE AT U17 CAMP

LEE BOYADJIAN

CALGARY, Alta. – It took until the third period for the scoring to start, but once it did the goals came fast and furious. In the end, it was Red earning the victory, beating White 4-2 Friday night at Canada’s national under-17 development camp.

Serron Noel (Nepean, Ont./Ottawa, HEO) scored twice in a span of 5:27 early in the third period, with Mathieu Desgagnés (Verdun, Que./Châteauguay, LHMAAAQ) adding a goal in between to turn a 0-0 game into a 3-0 Red advantage.

“In the room, the coach was really getting us fired up, everyone was really excited,” Noel said. “In the first two [periods] we got our nerves out and in the third we just started to kind of come together as a team.”

After the teams had combined for zero goals on 31 shots through two periods, Noel finally opened the scoring early in the third, picking off a clearing attempt in the high slot and going five-hole on White goaltender Hunter Jones (Brantford, Ont./Mississauga Reps, GTHL).

That goal helped get the momentum firmly with Red after White finished the second period on a defensive high; pinned in its own zone on the penalty kill, White blocked shots and cleared lanes, energizing the bench.

“We had the momentum,” said White forward Liam Foudy (Toronto, Ont./Markham, GTHL). “The bench was going nuts. I don’t know what happened between periods.”

Desgagnés doubled the Red lead three minutes after the Noel goal, beating Jones on a short breakaway from the blue-line in, and Noel added a second 2:27 after that for the eventual game-winner.

“We were all kind of bummed out we were getting our shots blocked [at the end of the second period] and we were trying to figure out what was working. We just stuck to the game plan,” Noel explained. “It started to work, we started to get more shots and we got a couple of lucky bounced and we won the game.”

Barrett Hayton (Peterborough, Ont./Toronto Red Wings, GTHL) tucked a rebound past Red goaltender Colten Ellis (River Denys, N.S./Cape Breton, NSMMHL) to get White on the board only 15 seconds after Noel had netted his second of the game, but White would get no closer than two goals.

Logan Cash (Upper Tantallon, N.S./Halifax, NSMMHL) and Elijah Brown (Edmonton, Alta./Edmonton SSAC, AMHL) traded goals for Red and White, respectively, in the final four minutes.

The loss was the first-ever for White at U17 camp; it went undefeated and won the camp title in 2014 and 2015.

White will look to bounce back Saturday night when it takes on Blue at the Markin MacPhail Centre (7:45 p.m. MT), while Red enjoys a day away from game action before meeting Blue on Sunday night (7:30 p.m. MT).