Health & Fitness
Plymouth Whalers Close Out Ottawa, 3-1, on Saturday
PLYMOUTH - After the Plymouth Whalers defeated London, 2-1 in a shootout, on Dec. 29 at Comerica Park during the Hockeytown Winter Classic, Whalers goaltender Alex Nedeljkovic spoke about how his team is starting to learn how to win tight games.
"We're starting to figure out how to play, how to win and how to finish off games," Nedeljkovic said then. "Especially (in) tight games. Early in the season, we had leads in the third period and ended up giving up the lead. We can't let those games get away. We've learned from it and (are) starting to see results."
Saturday's 3-1 win over the Ottawa 67's is proof that Nedeljkovic and the Whalers are becoming more like Joe Nathan and less like Jose Valverde.
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Plymouth has won five of its last seven games and improves to 16-21-0-5. Ottawa is 14-23-1-3.
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Nedeljkovic and linemates Zach Lorentz and Matt Mistele joined forces as the game's three stars to lead to Whalers in the victory. First star Lorentz scored the first two goals of the game, Mistele figured on on all three goals with an empty netter in the final minute while assisting on the Lorentz goals and Nedeljkovic stopped 41-of-42 shots.
Lorentz was named the first star, Nedeljkovic second and Mistele third, but the order could have been changed with no argument.
In truth, a lot of guys who wore the Plymouth green could have been named a star.
Lorentz gave Plymouth a 1-0 lead at 2:08 of the first period when the Whalers took advantage of a turnover in the Ottawa zone. Gianluca Curcuruto picked off a loose puck at the point and found Mistele, who took a shot that was re-directed by Lorentz at the left circle past Ottawa goaltender Philippe Trudeau.
Lorentz gave then Whalers a 2-0 at 12:25 of the second period with linemates Mistele and Ryan Hartman working effectively deep in the Ottawa zone. Lorentz found the puck behind the 67's net and scored on a wraparound at the left post, beating Trudeau and defenseman Nevin Guy to the spot to score.
Ottawa cut the Plymouth lead to 2-1 on Dante Salituro's power play goal at 19:05 of the second period. Guy started the play with a hard shot from the right point that was redirected by Salituro, back-door, at the left post.
The goal was Salituro's 14th of the season.
The 67's pressured in the third period with 14 shots with their most dangerous play not a shot as Travis Konecny rang a puck off the the crossbar. The Whalers were able to ice the game when Mistele scored on the empty net with 44 seconds remaining.
Plymouth remains home next week, hosting Sudbury on Friday and Windsor on Saturday at Compuware Arena. Both games start at 7:05 pm.