The Frontenacs\u2019 work week began with a bag skate on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
They\u2019re expecting the same this coming week after an error-riddled 8-6 loss to the Erie Otters at Slush Puppie Place Sunday afternoon.<\/p>\n
Kingston coach Troy Mann alluded to \u201ca puck-free video session\u201d as the lead item in his practice plan. As unsettling as the viewing of Sunday\u2019s lowlights might be for the players, it will be less trying than the ordeal Mann has in store when they step on the ice next.<\/p>\n
Erie came into the game on a three-game losing streak, including defeats in Peterborough on Thursday and Ottawa on Friday. The Otters were shut out by the Petes and fell to the 67\u2019s 6-1, and the knock of the squad this year has been a dearth of goals, having scored just 13 times in five games.<\/p>\n
At an average 2.6 goals per contest, they were just about the last team to post a snowman on the scoring summary, especially at the end of a road trip.<\/p>\n
Frontenacs captain Vann Williamson ruefully called the session \u201ca track meet\u201d and others compared it to a ball-hockey game, but no matter the labelling, it was hockey that offends Mann\u2019s aesthetic of puck possession and defensive awareness.<\/p>\n
His assessment of the loss was blunt: \u201cNot a fun game to coach. We\u2019re not in sync defensively.\u201d<\/p>\n
The game had started out promisingly enough for the home side.<\/p>\n
The Frontenacs jumped up to a 2-0 lead through the first 11 minutes on goals by Robin Kuzma and Aleks Kulemin. That the Frontenacs only had three shots on goalie Liam Karbowski, the Otters\u2019 ostensible back-up who had been in the net just 13 minutes three weeks into the regular season.<\/p>\n
A harbinger of struggles ahead came with 62 seconds when Finnish import centre Luka Arkko scored his first OHL goal for Erie. The goal wasn\u2019t against play\u2014the Otters were outshooting Kingston 11-7 at that point and Kingston goalie Matt Minchak had to make a few tough saves along the way. Still, it was easy to like the Frontenacs\u2019 chances.<\/p>\n
Mann\u2019s nightmare began with the puck drop in the second period. The Otters\u2019 Evan Headrick and Michael Dec scored in the first two minutes to give the visitors the lead and suck the oxygen out of the arena.<\/p>\n
Nolan Snyder tied the game on a Kingston powerplay a couple of minutes later, the Frontenacs\u2019 third goal coming on just their eighth shot to that point. If Karbowski was there for the taking, it didn\u2019t matter\u2014the starter\u2019s pistol in Williamson\u2019s track meet had already been fired.<\/p>\n
Space on the newspaper page and bandwith on the internet doesn\u2019t allow of the full catalogue of the Frontenacs\u2019 mistakes, miscues and misfires in the second period of the Erie game. Among the most conspicuous were those made by Adam Goljer, the heralded Slovak defenceman.<\/p>\n
With Kingston on a powerplay a few shifts after Snyder\u2019s goal and well-positioned to regain the lead, Goljer made a bad pinch at the blueline and Otters penalty-killers had a two-on-one, Jake Murray finishing off Kayden Edwards\u2019s set-up to put Erie up 4-3.<\/p>\n
Again, Kingston came back getting goals from Goljer and Kulemin to regain the lead. Goljer scored on a powerplay and to celebrate he made a show of brushing his shoulder, as if to communicate his lack of worry about any knocking. In any study of narratives this qualifies as temptation of the fates.<\/p>\n
On the shift after Kulemin\u2019s goal, loose play by Williamson and his defensive partner Andre Mondoux, Kingston\u2019s first pairing, led a goal by Lucas Ambrosio, tying the game 5-all.<\/p>\n
\u201cWilliamson and Mondoux had a good game against Peterborough [in a 5-3 Kingston win] Friday night,\u201d Mann said. \u201cThey should be reliable.\u201d<\/p>\n
The inference to draw was that they were less than that Sunday.<\/p>\n
And if singling out Goljer might feel a tad unfair, his turnovers in all zones of the ice were no less glaring and as critical was the gaffe made Alex McLean\u2019s on a Kingston powerplay. Despite having open ice to clear the puck, McLean stick-handled into trouble, and seconds later Mclean Agrette\u2019s goal had his Otters teammates celebrating. Erie led 6-5 at the end of the frenetic second period and the visitors couldn\u2019t have guessed that this goal had put them ahead to stay.<\/p>\n
Liam Beamish put Erie ahead by two four minutes into the final frame, but Alex McLean\u2019s fourth goal of the year made it 7-6. With 15 minutes left in the track meet, it seemed like one of the teams and made both could hit double figures but the official scorer\u2019s workload slowed.<\/p>\n
Beamish added an insurance goal with a little over six minutes left in regulation.<\/p>\n
Matt Minchak stopped only 31 of 39 shots and saw his goals-against average climb to 6.09 with and .840 save percentage. Mann suggested the high volume of Erie shots were at least in part a by-product of Minchak\u2019s lack of rebound control.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe creates a lot of work for us,\u201d Mann said. \u201cI thought about pulling him a couple of times.\u201d<\/p>\n
With the loss, Kingston drops to 3-4-0-0 for the season. The Frontenacs next play the Barrie Colts at the Sadlon Arena Thursday night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Frontenacs\u2019 work week began with a bag skate on Tuesday. They\u2019re expecting the same this coming week…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":299853,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[136,138,137,35979],"class_list":["post-299852","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-erie","tag-erie","tag-erie-headlines","tag-erie-news","tag-kingston"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299852","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=299852"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299852\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/299853"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299852"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}