Plymouth Whalers Pull Away From Barrie in 4-1 Win

The Plymouth Whalers extended a 2-1 lead after two periods of play with two unanswered goals in the third period and the Whalers went on to defeat the Barrie Colts, 4-1, in an Ontario Hockey League game played Friday night before 2,367 at .

Plymouth has won five out its last seven games and improves to 9-6-2-0, good for 20 points and fourth place in the Western Conference race. The Whalers are two points behind the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds (11-7-0-0, 22 points), who defeated Kingston tonight, 3-1.

VIDEO: See the highlights. 

The Whalers' forward line of Jamie Devane, Alex Aleardi and Andy Bathgate led the way offensively.  Each was named a star - Bathgate, the game's third star with a goal (5th) and an assist and a +2 night; Aleardi scored a goal (7th), contributed an assist and was +3; and Devane was the first star with a goal (game-winner and 6th of the season) with two assists and was +3. Tom Wilson scored the other Plymouth goal, his third of the year.  Plymouth defenseman Austin Levi contributed a +4 night.

Matt Mahalak continues to play well in goal for Plymouth, stopping 31-of-32 for his fourth straight win to raise his won-lost record to 5-2-0-0.  He lowered his goals against average to 1.96 (which leads the league) and is now tied with London's Michael Houser for the league lead with a 0.934 save percentage.

Tanner Pearson scored the lone Barrie goal, his 13th of the season.  Barrie is now 8-7-0-1.

Plymouth dominated the first period at times with sustained pressure in the Barrie zone, outshooting the Colts, 19-9.  Wilson scored the only goal of the period at 13:35.  J.T. Miller carried the puck wide left wing into the Barrie zone and fed it across to Wilson, who drove hard to the net to beat a Barrie defender in front of Colts goaltender Mathias Niederberger to score on a redirect.

The Whalers took a 2-0 lead at 8:51 of the second period Devane and Aleardi connecting.  Devane scored from the left circle, five-hole on Niederberger.

"We had a good breakout and Aleardi fed me," Devane said of his game-winning goal. "So I shot it and it went in."

Some of Barrie's best scoring chances came in the second period and they cut the Plymouth lead to 2-1 at 19:10 of the period on Pearson's deflection in front of Mahalak, who got a piece of the puck, but it went into the net.

The Whalers depth was the difference in the third period.  Devane - set up behind the Barrie goal - found Aleardi in front, who scored on a deflection at 0:58 of the period to give Plymouth a 3-1 lead.  

"I protected the puck down low and I saw Bathgate high slot and Aleardi sneaking in back door," Devane said.  "I shot the puck and it went of off him (Aleardi)."

The line cashed in again to complete the scoring at 12:48, when Devane found Bathgate in the left circle and his shot went of Niederberger's glove and into the goal.

Plymouth outshot Barrie, 37-32.

Although Devane's line led Plymouth offensively, he was quick to give credit to everyone who wore a Whalers jersey tonight.

"We were clicking well tonight," Devane said.  "But I think the key tonight was that all four lines were firing.  So we were able to wear them down and then we capitalized on our chances.  Barrie has a really strong first line (Tanner Pearson-Mark Scheifele-Colin Behenna) and our line of (Mitchell) Heard, Miller and Wilson did a really good job of shutting them down."

Plymouth is slowly rising up the Western Conference standings.  Devane has seen improvement in the team since he came back from Toronto of the AHL and made his Plymouth debut Oct. 13 in Windsor.

"'Ever since I've been back, I've seen this team grow tremendously," Devane said.  "We've started to work more as a team and less individually.  I thought tonight all four lines were strong - you could put them out in any situation and something would happen."

Plymouth remains at home tonight, hosting Windsor at 7:05 p.m. at (6:50 p.m., WSDP-FM 88.1). The Whalers complete a busy weekend Sunday in Saginaw against the Spirit.