The Brampton Steelheads have no intention of making things easy for the Sudbury Wolves as the teams hit the stretch drive, looking to secure the eighth and final playoff position in the Eastern Conference of the OHL.
So for as much as a three-game eastern Ontario road swing for Sudbury saw the Wolves put in three fairly solid performances highlighted by a huge 5-2 win over the Ottawa 67's on Sunday, Brampton continues to apply the pressure, picking up points in four straight games.
When the smoke cleared on Monday morning, the Wolves still find themselves three points up on the Steelheads, but eight points back of a Kingston Frontenacs squad that has won six of their last ten as all signs point to a Sudbury - Brampton showdown to the finish.
Winning one of three on the road is not ideal, but nor does it fall well outside the lines of realistic expectations as coach Scott Barney and the boys departed the nickel city last Thursday.
Despite outshooting the Peterborough Petes 34-27 in the Lift Lock City that night, the local juniors fell victim to an impressive performance between the pipes from the game's first star, Easton Rye, dropping a 4-1 decision to the Petes.
Sudbury recalibrated after an opening tally just 69 seconds in from Adam Novotny but saw the home side pull away in the middle stanza as both Kieron Walton and Brennan Faulkner hit the mark.
Jean-Cristoph Lemieux (Sudbury) and Braydon McCallum (Peterborough) traded goals over the final 28 minutes of play to close out the scoring.
With netminder Paolo Frasca making his first start since January 11th due to injury, the Wolves went toe to toe with the Frontenacs Friday night in Kingston. With the game tied at 2-2 and time winding down, Alex Misiak drilled home his seventh goal of the season, lifting the Fronts past the Wolves 3-2.
Remaining Kingston goal scorers included Kieren Dervin and Aleks Kulemin while Ethan Dean and Jan Chovan replied in a losing cause for The Pack.
The Wolves were fully aware that a win over Ottawa in the road trip finale was critical, but that taking down the second leading team in the conference would be no easy task.
A quick start certainly did not hurt the effort as Chase Coughlan and Jean-Cristoph Lemieux both bulged the twine in the opening frame only to see Zach Houben and David Bedkowski do the same in the first ten minutes of period two.
Daniel Berehowsky sniped what would stand as the game-winning goal before the end of the stanza and the second of the game from J-C Lemieux at 1:54 of the third gave Sudbury a little extra insurance.
With Bjorn Bronas rebounding in a very big way (39 saves on 41 shots) following the loss in Peterborough and Adam Nemec capping things off offensively, the Wolves secured an important two points heading into another week of action.
The upcoming schedule sees the team tackling a three in three home & away set as the Wolves welcome the high-flying Windsor Spitfires to town on Friday - not to mention the return of beloved former captain Nathan Villeneuve - before taking to the road for battles against the Peterborough Petes (Saturday) and Oshawa Generals.
