There are twists and turns in every Ontario Hockey League season.
On Saturday at Compuware Arena, the Plymouth Whalers - trailing the Belleville Bulls, 3-2, after two periods - came to a potential cross road to their season.
The Whalers came into the game with a four-game losing streak, in the eighth playoff spot in the Western Conference race, with Sarnia and Kitchener chasing them to try to take the final playoff spot.
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"Mike challenged us between periods," said Whalers forward Ryan Hartman about Plymouth head coach Mike Vellucci. "He asked us, 'How did we want our season to turn out?' That it was up to us."
The Whalers responded, scoring a pair of power play goals in the third period in a come from behind, 4-3 victory over the Belleville Bulls.
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Matt Mistele’s power play goal at 16:28 of the third period broke a 3-3 tie. Earlier, Hartman tied the game at 3-3 with his second goal of the night and 16th of the year at 14:53.
Give Vellucci credit for the comeback, too. Plymouth's two-goal run came after Vellucci called a time-out with the Whalers enjoying a five-on-three power play with 14:34. Hartman tied the game 0:19 later, which led to Mistele's game-winner.
The Whalers snapped a four-game losing streak and improve to 18-27-0-5, good for 41 points and the eighth and final playoff spot on the OHL’s Western Conference race. Plymouth is five points ahead of Kitchener (17-30-1-1, 36 points), who won Saturday in Niagara, 5-4, in a shootout. The Whalers are also five points ahead of Sarnia (15-30-1-5, 36 points), who lost Saturday, 7-3, to Mississauga.
Plymouth's other goal came from Carter Sandlak (21). Second star Zach Lorentz contributed three assists for the Whalers and third star Alex Nedeljkovic stopped 42-of-45 shots for Plymouth.
Jake Marchment (8), Jake Bricknell (first OHL goal) and Remi Elie (20) scored second period goals for Belleville.
The game featured runs by both teams at different times.
Plymouth scored the first two goals to lead, 2-0, on Sandlak's redirect of Gianluca Curcuruto's shot at 12:10 of the first period and Hartman's put-back of a rebound from the left circle off Yannick Rathgeb's shot at 8:49 of the second period.
But the Bulls came back to take their first lead of the game at 3-2 in the second period on goals by Marchment at 12:43 (strong move by Scott Simmonds to the net, with Marchment following the puck outside the paint), Bricknell at 14:02 (blast from the right circle) and Elie at 16:08 (partial breakaway).
After Vellucci's time out in the third period, the Whalers responded immediately. Hartman treaded the needle with a shot from the lower rim of the left circle and Mistele batted home a loose puck through traffic at the right side of the Belleville goal, set up by Connor Chatham's cross-crease pass at the left side of the net.
Belleville outshot Plymouth, 45-38.
Plymouth remains at home over the weekend, hosting Sault Ste. Marie on Friday and North Bay on Saturday. Both games start at 7:05 pm at Compuware Arena.
