Niagara Falls trailed in all four of its games last week. It erased the deficit in all four.
That the Canucks came away with only two of a possible eight points says less about how they played than the standings suggest. A junior-A team that spent seven days climbing out of holes against four different opponents found something it can build on, even when it could not find the last save or the last clear.
The week opened Tuesday in Burlington, and the pattern was set there. The Canucks trailed 1-0 after the first period, then went ahead on goals from Tim Marcotte 24 seconds into the second and CJ Irwin on the power play at 17:03. The Cougars tied it with 35 seconds left in the period, Jaden Flora restored the lead 38 seconds into the third, and Burlington answered with four straight for a 6-3 win.
Friday night at the Gale Centre, Georgetown led 2-0 before Rafek Dianov scored midway through the second, and Jaden Flora tied it at 12:20 of the third off feeds from his brother Justin and Lucas Nelson. Neither team scored in overtime. The Raiders took it in a shootout, 3-2, but the Canucks had their point, and Timofey Williams had turned aside 45 of 47.
Saturday brought the same ending by a different route. In Toronto, Dianov tied the game early in the second, Eric Bründl-Pandzich put the Canucks ahead at 12:18 and Ethan Abraham made it 3-1 at 17:06. The Warriors answered 43 seconds later, scored twice more inside the opening 7:11 of the third and won 4-3.
Sunday afternoon in Caledon produced the best of it and the hardest of it. Niagara Falls fell behind 2-0 inside 11 minutes, answered with two goals in 52 seconds from Dianov and Bründl-Pandzich, then watched Evan Greco score twice late in the period to make it 4-2.
Greco’s second goal, at 18:22, brought matters to a head. Alex Bedic and Braylon Masulka dropped the gloves on the same stoppage, both drawing fighting majors and game misconducts. The Canucks came out of the intermission a different team.
Will Fyfe scored at 10:42 of the second and Dominic D’Eletto tied it on the power play at 12:25. Jacob Greene put Niagara Falls ahead 5-4 at 7:57 of the third.
The Admirals pulled Jacob Saldanha with under three minutes to play and Greco completed his hat trick at 17:06 to force overtime. Nicholas Wlodarczyk ended it 1:15 into the extra period for a 6-5 Caledon win. Williams stopped 49 of 55 shots.
The most encouraging number of the week has nothing to do with the standings. Niagara Falls scored 13 goals, and nine different players scored them. Fifteen Canucks recorded at least a point.
Dianov led the way with three goals. Jaden Flora and Bründl-Pandzich scored twice apiece. Brodie Wood finished with four assists, three of them Sunday in Caledon. Marcotte and Justin Flora had three assists each. Max DeCoff, Irwin, Dylan Orr, Nicolas Glanville, Fyfe, Greene and Nelson all landed on the scoresheet.
That is the distribution coaches ask for in September, and it is a long way from leaning on one line. The finishing has come from the fourth line as readily as the first, and from the blue line as well.
What is left is closing. Three of the four losses came after Niagara Falls had drawn level or moved ahead in the third period, and the team was outshot in every game, most heavily Sunday, when Caledon put 55 pucks on Williams.
The Canucks are 2-3-1-1 through seven games. They return home Friday, September 18 to face the Milton Menace at 7 p.m. at the Gale Centre, then go straight back on the road Sunday for a 3 p.m. start against the King Rebellion at the Zancor Centre.
