Avon scores in overtime; Petes advance to semifinal

Peterborough overcomes 4-1 deficit with four straight goals in tiebreaker

What did the Peterborough Petes say about responding with their backs against the wall?

The Petes booked their spot in the Memorial Cup semifinal, rallying from a 4-1 deficit to beat the host Blazers, 5-4, and break the hearts of a sold-out Sandman Centre in Kamloops, B.C., on Thursday night.

J.R. Avon buried Owen Beck’s pass on an odd-man rush after Michael Simpson had robbed Owen Zellweger seconds earlier at 10:54 into overtime in the first Memorial Cup tiebreaker game to require overtime. Simpson was named player of the game for his 43 saves.

It was a far cry from their roundrobin game, won 10-2 by Kamloops on Sunday, as the Petes improved to 4-0 in elimination games this playoffs.

The Petes (2-2) played the Western Hockey League champion Seattle Thunderbirds (2-1) in the semifinal game late Friday night. For the result, visit our website.

The Quebec Major Junior Hockey League champion Quebec Remparts (2-1) earned a bye directly to Sunday’s final at 7 p.m. EDT.

“The muddier the water, the better it is for us,” said Petes head coach Rob Wilson. “Simmer was outstanding for us and it usually works in our favour when the games are like that.”

“It shows our character,” Simpson said.

“It seems like when we’re down a goal we battle even harder. We’re an older group so guys have kind of been through different situations and for some reason in this postseason when we’re down we seem to find that extra gear to push forward.”

It was redemption for Simpson, not only for being pulled Sunday against Kamloops, but he also rebounded from a fourth goal he felt he should have had.

“I kept the mindset that if I can keep it to this that we’re going to have a chance to come back, he said.

“It’s a heartbreaker,” said Blazers head coach Shaun Clouston.

“There are players like Logan (Stankoven) next to me who have put their heart and soul into this for four years. We’ve accomplished a ton, four division championships. We had a good run last year and couldn’t quite get there. We had a good run this year and couldn’t quite get there. The guys really fought hard today.”

Connor Lockhart emerged from the penalty box for an undeserved delay-of-game call to open the scoring on the Petes’ first shot at 7:52 into the game.

Chase Lefebvre and Jax Dubois retrieved a dump-in behind the Blazers goal line and Dubois centred to a wide open Lockhart who one-timed the shot past goalie Dylan Ernst.

After Lockhart came close to making it 2-0, Kamloops tied it at11:19 on a broken play when the puck deflected to Stankoven who put it inside the post in the top corner.

Kamloops went ahead on their second power play 1:26 later as Caedan Bankier worked the puck back to Zellweger who moved in off the point and snapped a shot past Simpson. It was Kamloops’ sixth power-play goal of the tournament, fifth against Peterborough.

Harrison Brunicke made it 3-1 after the Petes failed to clear the puck a couple of times, moving into the faceoff circle to wrist a shot over Simpson’s shoulder with 2:27 left in the first. Shots were 15-6 Kamloops in the first.

“A bit of the ghost of the other night crept in when they scored a couple of goals and we had to reset, Wilson said. “I think Stiller’s big hit got the guys on the bench saying to each other we are not dead. This isn’t over. That rejuvenated them a bit. I told them, ‘If you don’t allow another goal, we can win this. If we give up another goal, we’re going to be in big trouble,’ no matter when it was. When it was 4-2 I told them the same thing, and 4-3.”

Bankier went after Chase Stillman after the Pete delivered a big hit on Matthew Seminoff and got dropped by a right hand from Stillman early in the second period.

The Petes failed to score on a power play from the melee and Logan Bairos went to the net to tip Seminoff’s shot in off Simpson’s glove 4:23 into the second.

Brennan Othmann got the Petes comeback started 3:17 later with his first goal of the tournament. He stripped a Blazer of the puck and ripped a shot top corner.

The Petes closed the gap on a power play when Sam Mayer hammered a shot from the point by Ernst with 2:23 left in the second.

Brian Zanetti then tied it with 1:10 left in the period moving in from the blue line to redirect Tucker Robertson’s shot past Ernst.

Fraser Minten fired a shot off the crossbar 10 seconds into the third.