Caps pull away from Mariners

Stay Tuned!

Photos
Videos
Poll

View Complete Photo Galleries

Corcoran's OT Winner

Brett Gallant vs. Graham Telford

View our Video Collection

Thursday, February 4th 2010Caps pull away from Mariners
Carmichael's five points lead way; teams engage in six third-period fights

JASON SIMMONDS
The Journal Pioneer

SUMMERSIDE - The Summerside Western Capitals made it back-to-back wins Sunday afternoon for the first time since mid-December.
The Capitals, who snapped a five-game losing streak with a 10-6 road win over Halifax on Thursday, scored four unanswered goals to pull away from the Yarmouth Mariners in a 7-2 victory in the Maritime Junior 'A' Hockey League contest.
"We've put together a couple of strong performances," assessed Capitals head coach Gordie Dwyer. "The team has something to prove and they know they haven't played up to par in front of their fans here.
"They wanted to come out with a strong performance."
Before 688 fans at Credit Union Place, third-year forward Trevor Carmichael had five points and a spirited fight against Yarmouth captain Carl Hayes at 17:37 of the third period. That started a string of six fights in 16 seconds that Carmichael admitted was a carry-over from the last time the two teams met in Yarmouth on Jan. 3. That game was called off late in the third period because the Capitals did not have enough players to continue.
"We had a lot of stuff built up from the last game against them," said Carmichael, who had two goals and three assists. "Guys were definitely ready for this game."
Darcy Ashley (1-3), Harrison McIver (1-1), Lance Pridham, Jason Cameron and Mitchell Hare also scored for the Capitals (20-16-1-1). Michael Crawley and Shane Innes each had a goal and an assist for Yarmouth (14-23-2-2), which received an assist from Mitch Kerr of Charlottetown.
Carmichael's first goal was a big one. It came during a two-man power play for 1:32 and extended the Caps' lead to 3-1 at 14:57 of the first period. The Caps displayed great patience moving the puck around and defenceman Parker Deighan made a perfect pass to Carmichael, who was positioned to the left of goaltender Charles Grant.
"On a five-on-three you do not want to waste your shots," said Carmichael. "On a normal power play you want to get shots on net, but on a five-on-three you want to look for that one shot that's going to make the difference.
"We moved it around until we got the perfect shot and it ended up being an empty-netter - it was an easy tap-in goal for me."
Another key for the Capitals was killing off all 12 Yarmouth power plays.
"Obviously there's a fine line between being too aggressive and we took a few too many penalties in the first period (four), but our penalty killing gave us an opportunity," said Dwyer. "The players deserve the credit - they played hard and competed for 60 minutes."
The Caps host Pictou County on Sunday at 2 p.m.

Summary
A look at the Caps-Yarmouth game:
Final score: Capitals 7 Mariners 2
Scoring: Capitals - Trevor Carmichael (2-3), Darcy Ashley (1-3), Harrison McIver (1-1), Lance Pridham, Jason Cameron and Mitchell Hare; Mariners - Shane Innes (1-1), Michael Crawley (1-1).
Assists: Capitals - Chad Earle, Matt Myers, Ned O'Brien, Parker Deighan, Neil Sherren, Steve Brazil and Will Johnston; Mariners - Mitch Kerr.
Goaltenders: Capitals - Alexander Micalef; Mariners - Charles Grant.
Shots on goal: Capitals outshot Yarmouth 29-28.
Power plays: Capitals - 1-for-6; Mariners - 0-for-12.
Three stars: 1. Trevor Carmichael (Capitals), 2. Darcy Ashley (Capitals), 3. Harrison McIver (Capitals).