CeeBees Stars netminder Charlie Lavigne had arguably his best game in a blue and white sweater as the CeeBees defeated the Clarenville Caribous 6-2 at the Clarenville Events Centre on Sunday afternoon.
Lavigne stopped 51 of the 53 shots he faced to record the victory for the CeeBees. Lavigne frustrated the Caribous offense all game, especially Caribous’ forward Andrew Sweetland, who had several scoring chances stuffed by the Hawksbury, Ontario native.
The game started well for Clarenville as Dale Sullivan found the back of the net less than three minutes into the opening frame. Ryan Desrosiers’ great drive to the net made it a 2-0 game with just under seven minutes left in the first, but that was the end of the Caribous’ offense for the night.
Just over two minutes later, the CeeBees were able to tie the game thanks to quick goals by Terry Ryan and Keith Delaney.
The CeeBees jumped out 4-2 after two periods, thanks to a bad bounce off the boards that landed on Daniel Sparkes stick and an impressive breakaway goal from Robert Slaney.
The CeeBees put the nail in the coffin just 2:20 into the third frame with Mike Dyke’s second goal of the weekend. Jason Hedges added an empty-netter to finish the scoring.
The Caribous came out strong in the third period in an effort to close the gap and outshot the CeeBees 25-10 in the final period but Lavigne was up to the task.
Caribous’ tender Jason Churchill didn’t have his best outing of the season, allowing five goals and stopping 30 shots in the loss.
Firing 53 shots on goal is proof the Caribous played a strong offensive game, but they just ran into a goalie having a hot night.
“I thought we played a pretty good game for the most part,” said Caribous assistant coach Todd Brett.
“We had a couple of bad defensive breakdowns in our own end right in front of our net. That’s where a couple of their goals came from but we outplayed them for most of the game. There’s not a lot to say other than we ran into a hot goalie.”
The Caribous are on the road next week for their first look at the new Gander Flyers. The teams will meet Saturday at 7:30pm and Sunday at 1:30pm. Both games will take place at the Gander Community Centre.
