By Spencer Seymour
For the fifth consecutive post-season, the St. Marys Lincolns have won their first-round series, eliminating the Kitchener-Waterloo Siskins in five games.
Barring a miraculous comeback by the Elmira Sugar Kings, the Lincolns will likely meet the winner of the series between the London Nationals and Listowel Cyclones in the second round. Heading into Game 4 on March 26, London led the series three games to none. St. Marys defeated London in seven games last year to win the Western Conference Championship before eventually falling to Listowel in five games in the Sutherland Cup Final.
Despite dominating much of the game, the Lincolns had nothing positive to show for their performance in Game 4 March 20 when they not only lost the game 2-1 in double overtime but also had one of their top defencemen in Ryder Livermore and wily veteran forward Jacob McLellan leave the game due to injury.
According to head coach Jeff Bradley, a lack of conversion on their chances spoiled a largely impressive effort.
“Our penalty kill and our five-on-five play was really good,” said Bradley. “I was really happy with what we did after the first period, so it’s hard to get on them too much. It’s definitely unfortunate because we did everything right except for actually scoring, and when you don’t score, one mistake can cost you the game. I thought Waterloo made more mistakes than we did, but when you aren’t finishing, you’re exposing yourself to a loss.”
St. Marys ended the game with zero goals on six-man advantages, while the Siskins failed to score on five powerplays.
Bradley added the team’s play improved greatly after the opening 20 minutes, but the Lincolns missed out on too many quality opportunities.
“In the first period, I thought we could have done a much better job of having that killer instinct,” Bradley told the Independent. “Personally, I didn’t find that Waterloo was really good in the first period, but I don’t think we took advantage of that the way we should have. And unfortunately, it kind of ended up biting us later in the game.”
Nolan Chartrand was the star of the show for the Siskins, making 54 saves in Kitchener-Waterloo’s only win of the series, a performance that vaulted his playoff save percentage from 0.899 through three games to 0.929 after four games.
Bradley credited the stellar showing by Chartrand but noted his squad could have done a bit more to make the chances he faced more challenging.
“He was outstanding, but you can always affect that a little bit. At times, we didn’t quite make his life difficult enough. It’s tough on the big ice because you can get lost in the zones. We didn’t have too much net-front traffic there, and then, even some of the good quality chances such as a couple of breakaways we had, we weren’t putting the most threatening shots on.”
The Lincolns’ play picked up in the second period, but despite their dominant effort, the Siskins found the icebreaker with Larson Millar jamming home a loose puck during a goal-mouth scramble.
St. Marys outshot Kitchener-Waterloo 20-11 in the second period alone, a big factor in the final shot clock reading 55-34 in the Lincs’ favour. Nico Armellin made a very solid 32 saves in the Lincolns’ net.
It took until the dying moments of the middle stanza for the Lincolns to finally break through Chartrand, and it was Blake Elzinga launching a laser-like snapshot off the rush that snuck by Chartrand. Elzinga’s line, which also includes Ryan Hodkinson and Cohen Bidgood, has been widely viewed as the team’s best line so far these playoffs, and Game 4 was arguably the trio’s most dominant performance yet.
Bradley praised the three sophomore forwards for leading the team through the first round, noting it was no accident that it was the only line left intact heading into Game 5 when every other line was altered.
“I think the amount of time they played speaks for itself. Ryan (Hodkinson) was our most-used player throughout this series, and Blake (Elzinga) and Cohen (Bidgood) have been amazing along with him. We have been very happy with them. We had to make a number of changes going into Game 5, but that was one part of the lineup we refused to make any changes to.
“Blake has got so much speed, and he’s got a wicked shot,” Bradley continued. “Ryan thinks the game at an incredibly high level and has a really good stick, which helps him be so strong defensively. And Cohen is just so hard to get pucks off of. He always does the right thing, and he’s never afraid to do things the hard way.”
A scoreless third period sent the game into overtime, and after one extra period failed to produce a winner, it took just two minutes and four seconds in the second overtime frame for Ben Oliver, the Siskins’ captain who had yet to record a point in the series, to rip a wrist shot past Armellin’s glove to ice the game for Kitchener-Waterloo.
The loss ended the Lincolns’ run of pre-conference final playoff success, as the Lincolns had won 19 consecutive first- and second-round playoff games, dating back to the 2023 post-season.
Lincs eliminate Siskins in Game 5
The Lincolns were tasked with shaking off the bitter-tasting loss just 24 hours later when they returned home to host the Siskins for Game 5, which is exactly what they did, routing Kitchener-Waterloo 6-0 and advancing to round two.
Bradley noted the one major element the Lincolns lacked in Game 4 was displayed abundantly in the final game of the series.
“We were outstanding the whole game,” Bradley said. “From top to bottom, I thought everyone in our lineup was great. We showed that type of killer instinct we expect and we need in order to hopefully go on a bit of a playoff run here.”
The Lincolns trounced the Siskins on the shot clock all game, but no more than in the first period when the Lincolns peppered 21 shots at Chartrand compared to just four faced by Colby Booth-Housego.
It took 15-and-a-half minutes for the Lincolns’ swarming attack to finally get rewarded when Noah VandenBrink slammed the puck into a yawning cage on a St. Marys powerplay for his first of the post-season. Bradley said he was pleased with the powerplay’s improved looks despite the man advantage ending the night with just one goal on nine tries.
“We put a lot of emphasis on the powerplay before the game. We challenged the group by saying that now is the time to get the job done, and if you don’t, somebody else is going to do it for you. Even though we went one-for-nine, I think that’s a little bit skewed because of a few shortened powerplays, and I thought overall, our powerplay looked much more dangerous.”
Less than a minute after VandenBrink buried the game’s first goal, Bidgood finally got rewarded for his stellar play with his first goal of the playoffs.
The Lincolns enjoyed offensive production from throughout the forward group, with members of each line finding the back of the net during the contest. The only goal of the second frame came at the 6:52 mark when Lincoln Moore buried his third of the playoffs, tied for the team lead in goals with Kyle Morey, who registered his third goal of the post-season in the third period.
Jaden Lee fired his second of the playoffs in the third, just two-and-a-half minutes before Ryan Cornfield scored his first-ever playoff goal.
Cornfield and Moore are tied for the Lincolns’ lead in points, with both sitting at five. Morey, Hodkinson and Owen Voortman each have four points through five games, and Lee, VandenBrink, Chase MacQueen-Spence and Chase McDougall are all sitting at three points.
Bradley cited the team’s wealth of experience over the last several years as a key factor in the team being able to bounce back after a disappointing and frustrating loss in Game 4.
“We’ve got a lot of guys in that room that have lost before, which means they know how to respond to that. I think having so many games crammed into a relatively short amount of time benefits our depth. We’re able to spread out some of our players’ ice times a bit more than Waterloo could, so we had a bit more in our legs thanks to our depth.”
The Stratford Warriors joined Lincolns in advancing to the second round of the post-season, sweeping their way to the semi-finals. Stratford eliminated the LaSalle Vipers on March 23 in Game 4, while the Chatham Maroons failed to complete the sweep of the Elmira Sugar Kings on March 24 when Elmira won 5-4 in overtime.
London could complete a sweep of the Cyclones on March 26. The only Eastern Conference team to advance out of the first round is the St. Catharines Falcons, who downed the Hamilton Kilty B’s in five games. The Fort Erie Meteors took a 2-1 series lead heading into Game 4 against the Cambridge RedHawks on March 24 after the Independent’s press time. The Port Colborne Sailors and Caledonia Corvairs each have two wins apiece through four games, while the Ayr Centennials are trying to stave off a major upset as they trail the Brantford Titans three games to one.
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