If playing in an all-star game can sometimes feel like a bad dream to a goaltender, image the nightmares that can brew up when you are in a skills competition against the best shooters in the Ontario Hockey League.
For the four goalies that played in the OHL All-Star Skills Competition and Three-on-Three Game at the WFCU Centre in Windsor on Tuesday, it wasn’t exactly a nightmare but it wasn’t a whole lot of fun either.
“I think I was probably a little nervous going into that three-on-three game,” said Windsor Spitfires’ goalie Andrew Engelage. “It can get pretty wide open with a few breakaways thrown in there. But it went pretty well. I thought for the most part a couple of our guys played some dedicated defence which was nice to see.”
Engelage helped the Western Conference to an 8-5 win in the three-on-three game that gave them a sweep of the evening after claiming a win in the skills competition segment earlier in the night.
“I guess there are so many weird things going on for the goalies that they’re not used to and won’t see in a game,” said Bryan Cameron of the Belleville Bulls, who won the shooting accuracy contest after knocking out four targets in four straight shots.
Mike Murphy of the Bulls is the reigning OHL goaltender of the year, but he admitted that it didn’t help him a whole lot against the league’s top snipers.
“It’s tough because you don’t know what they’re going to do,” said Murphy, who leads all OHL goaltenders with a 2.00 goals against average this season. “It’s good because there is a lot of good talent but they do things that you would never see in a game. It was fun.”
The skills competition started with a puck control relay that was won by the Western Conference trio of Joey Hishon of the Owen Sound Attack, Ryan O’Reilly of the Erie Otters and Phillip McRae of the London Knights. Nazem Kadri of the Knights picked up another point for the West when he beat Matt Duchene of the Brampton Battalion in the individual puck control relay.
Spitfires’ forward Taylor Hall won the fastest skater competition with a lap time of 14.178 seconds. He edged Evgeny Grachev of the Battalion by less than 1/100th of a second.
John Carlson of the Knights won the hardest shot contest when he blasted a shot at 96.0 miles per hour. P.K. Subban of the Bulls was runner up with a shot of 94.8 mph.
Cameron won the shooting accuracy segment while Cody Hodgson of the Battalion and Logan Couture of the Ottawa 67’s were both four-for-five.
“It all just kind of came together and worked out well,” Cameron said. “I guess I kind of got lucky there. All of our guys were shooting really well. It feels really good.”
The Eastern Conference won the penalty shot competition on goals by Stefan Della Rovere of the Barrie Colts, Zack Kassian of the Peterborough Petes, Cameron and Alex Pietrangelo of the Niagara IceDogs. Thomas McCollum of the Battalion turned aside all nine shooters he faced.
For complete Skills Competition Results click here
