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Sports

Excellent Goaltending Clinches Whalers' 3-0 Win Over Kitchener

Scott Wedgewood stops 32 shots in Saturday's playoff win on home ice.

PLYMOUTH - Scott Wedgewood stopped 32 shots while Andy Bathgate scored in the first period and Tom Wilson added a pair of third period goals as the Plymouth Whalers defeated the Kitchener Rangers, 3-0, in an Ontario Hockey League playoff game played Saturday night at .

3,180 watched a game that will go down as one of the top playoff games ever seen at Compuware Arena.

Plymouth leads the best of seven series, three-games-to-two. Plymouth and Kitchener meet Sunday in Game 6 in Kitchener (6:50 pm, www.plymouthwhalers.com). If a seventh game is needed, it will be played Tuesday at Compuware Arena at 7:05 pm.

Tonight’s playoff game had everything that is good in a hockey game, starting and ending with plenty of excellent goaltending, between Kitchener’s John Gibson and Plymouth’s Wedgewood.  

Gibson was named the game’s third star in stopping 45-of-47 Plymouth shots, with Wilson’s final goal coming on the empty net with 1:32 remaining. Gibson – an Anaheim draft who played for The United States in the 2012 World Junior Championships – has been named a star in four of the five games in the series. Wedgewood – a New Jersey draft who played for Canada in the 2012 World Junior Championships – pitched his second career OHL shutout, both in this series, as tonight’s first star.

Wedgewood is now second in the OHL playoffs with a 2.09 goals against average through 11 games; Gibson is third in the playoffs with a 2.10 goals against average through 10 games. Gibson leads the OHL playoffs with a 0.950 save percentage (384-for-404); Wedgewood is third at 0.935 (332-355).

Bathgate scored the only goal of the first period, a shorthanded effort at 9:47 of the first period. He skated into the Kitchener zone on the left wing and took a shot that seemed to carom off Cody Sol’s stick and went into the Rangers’ net, five-hole, past Gibson.

It looked for a long time like the Bathgate goal would stand as Wedgewood and Gibson were razor sharp. Perhaps Wedgewood’s best stop came on a Kitchener power play in the second period when Radek Faksa’s shot from the high slot deflected off a Plymouth stick and pinballed towards the right post. But Wedgewood stuck his pad out to make the save.

Plymouth has a history of winning third periods and outshot Kitchener, 18-10, in the final period. Wilson gave the Whalers some insurance at 11:49, capping off pressure in the Kitchener zone by batting home a rebound through traffic. Linemates Rickard Rakell and Matt Mistele - who played a strong game tonight for Plymouth - drew assists.

Kitchener called a time-out with 2:07 left a pulled Gibson for the extra attacker, but Wilson foiled the strategy, diving to bat the puck out of his own zone past a Kitchener point man, then picking up the puck in neutral ice and scoring on the empty net.

Depth continues to play a role in the series.  Plymouth - playing without leading playoff scorer Stefan Noesen - received excellent games from Mistele and Cody Payne. Kitchener used the forward line of Michael Catenacci, Tobias Rieder and Ben Thomson liberally tonight; Rieder and Catennaci were both -2 and Thomson was -3. The Rangers' lead defensive pairing - Ryan Murphy and Cody Sol - were -2 and -3, respectively.

Plymouth outshot, Kitchener, 48-32.

The winner of this series will move on to face London, who eliminated Saginaw, 5-2 Saturday, winning the series in six games. 

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