Braves on a roll heading into showdown with Colts

The Brockville Braves picked up right where they left off before the Christmas break, winning three games last week, bringing their current streak to six consecutive games.  

On Tuesday, the Braves travelled to Hawkesbury for the first leg of a home-and-home series with the Hawks.  In a very one-sided game, the Braves outshot their hosts 38-12, but had a hard time finishing and only managed a narrow 3-2 victory.  

Tyson Wilson got the visitors off the mark with his 12th of the season.  Wilson leads the league’s blue liners in both goals and points (12-20-32).  A pair of goals from leading scorer Kenny Matheson in the second period gave Brockville a 3-1, his 17th and 18th goals of the season.  Justin Gilbert played well when called upon, stopping 10 of the 12 shots he faced.  Brockville received multi-point games from Wilson, Matheson, and Sebastien Gingras who recorded a pair of helpers.  

On Thursday, the Braves welcomed Hawkesbury for the return leg.  In similar fashion, the Braves badly outshot the Hawks 48-27 en route to a 6-4 victory.  

After a 17 shot first period the Braves took a narrow 1-0 lead into the first intermission on Kyle Armstrong’s 11th goal of the season.  In the second period the two teams traded goals back and forth with David Roy and Mike Skakum netting their 9th and 13th goals of the year respectively giving Brockville a 3-2 lead heading into the final 20 minutes.  

The Hawks tied the game early in the third period before a pair of goals from Chris Roll and Skakum’s second of the game put the game out of reach.  The Hawks managed a consolation goal with only 10 seconds remaining to round out the scoring, giving the Braves a 6-4 victory.  

Brockville received multi-point games from Skakum (2-2-4), Roll (2-1-3), Scott Dawson (0-3-3), Stan Smrke (0-2-2) and Maxime Dumond (0-2-2).  William Betts was solid in goal stopping 23 of 27 shots he faced, giving him a 13-2-0-2 record on the year.  

On Sunday, the Braves hosted the upstart Carleton Place Canadians.  Another early start set the tone for the game, with Brockville jumping out to the early lead less than a minute into the game.  Matt Chartrain opened the scoring with his 8th of the year and Roy and Smrke made it 3-0, before a pair of quick goals from the Canadians cut the lead to 3-2.  Skakum scored the third period’s only goal to make the final score 4-2 for the hosts.  

With six consecutive wins the Braves have separated themselves from the middle of the pack and kept pace with the Cornwall Colts and Pembroke Lumber Kings.  The three perennial CHL powerhouse organizations look to be the front runners again in the title race.  

Brockville faces a huge challenge this weekend playing both Cornwall at home on Friday and then travelling to Pembroke on Sunday.  The two games will go a long way for the Braves if they look to narrow the gap between the Colts and Kings.  Game time on Friday is 7:30p.m. at the Memorial Centre.