by Romano Di Franco
Zachary Gravel extended his Nepean Raiders goal scoring streak to three games with his twelfth goal of the season with assists by Evan Boucher and Matt McQuade.
In the end that was the only goal that Nepean could put behind Smiths Falls Bears goaltender Victor Desjardins as the Raiders fell 5-1 in action Friday night at the Smiths Falls Memorial Centre.
Bears right winger Thomas Quick opened the scoring at 17:50 of the first period and the teams went to the dressing rooms after one period with Smiths Falls up 1-0.
After Gravel’s goal to tie it up, it was Smiths Falls defenseman Cameron McLean with the game winner at 15:31 of the second period and then got the insurance goal 38 seconds into the third period to make it 3-1. The Bears iced the game with goals by Tate Leeson who registered his 20th goal of the season and Theo Todd who collected his 22nd goal.
The Raiders were out-shot in the game 39-24 with Tyler Laureault turning aside 34 of the shots en route to an 0.872 save percentage on the night.
Both teams had their share of chances on the man-advantage with the Raiders failing to cash in on six chances while Smiths Falls tallied one goal in their five chances and with that the Raiders improved their penalty kill percentage on the season.
Theo Todd’s goal came with Aldéric Denis in the box for Hooking.
For the third straight game, Zachary Gravel was named the game’s third star powered by his one-goal effort. Gravel is just one game away from tying Tyler Laureault’s string of four straight games being named a game star in a stretch of games between October 3 to October 13.
Listen to all of the audio highlights using the black audio player at the top of this article!
The Nepean Raiders next game is Sunday, January 26 as they host the Kanata Lasers at the Nepean Sportsplex Yzerman Arena with the puck drop is at 2:30pm.
