CJHL Hockey
Grads on brink of elimination after 5-1 loss at home
By Fred Sherwin
Orléans Online

The Cumberland Grads were hoping to catch lighting in a bottle for a second time on Tuesday as their quarterfinal series with the Pembroke Lumber Kings returned to the Navan Arena where they upset the second seed in Game 2 last Thursday.

Unfortunately having home ice advantage was anything but for the Grads as the Lumber Kings skated to a 5-1 victory and a 3-1 advantage in the best of seven series. They will try to wrap up the series when they return home on Thursday where they are 29-4-0 so far this season.

The Lumber Kings scored twice in the second period, including a shorthanded goal by Kyle Just to take am early 2-0 lead and then added a second shorthanded goal early in the second stanza to go up 3-0.

Kale Wild managed to beat Pembroke starting goalie Scott Zacharias at the 12:46 mark of the second period for the Grads lone goal of the game as the Lumber KIngs would score twice more in the third to win in relative ease.

Things are looking pretty grim for the Grads who just can't match up with the Lumber Kings' firepower even when they have the man advantage. So far in the series they are 3-for-19 on the power play and they've given up two shorthanded goals for an efficiency rating of +1.

If they have any chance of winning on Thursday night they will have to shutdown Pembroke's power play and take advantage of their own, The game starts at 7:30 p.m. and will be available through live streaming on the CJHL website at www.cjhl.on.ca.

(Posted 8:30 a.m., March 17)

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