THREE IN THIRD NOT ENOUGH FOR CANADA IN CAMP FINALE

DAVID BRIEN

BLAINVILLE, Que. – Caroline Ouellette (Montreal, Que./Montreal, CWHL), Laura Fortino (Hamilton, Ont./Brampton, CWHL) and Jenelle Kohanchuk (Winnipeg, Man./Toronto, CWHL) scored in the third period, but that wasn’t enough for Canada’s National Women’s Team to top the Seigneurs des Mille-Îles, a Midget Espoir team from Quebec, who skated away with a 6-3 win on Thursday night in the second of two exhibition games at training camp.

After a scoreless first period, it took less than three minutes before Elias Benbrika made it 1-0 for the Seigneurs, snapping a wrist shot over the glove of Genevieve Lacasse (Kingston, Ont./Boston, CWHL).

Nathan Gagnon made it 2-0 at 5:30 and Charles Ouellet beat Lacasse at 11:02, leaving Mille-Îles with a three-goal lead after 40 minutes.

Ouellet’s second goal of the game made it 4-0 in the early stages of the third period, but the Canadians refused to go down without a fight, chipping away at the Seigneurs’ lead.

At 6:29 it was Ouellette who capitalized on a loose puck just inside the Mille-Îles blue-line, hammering a slap shot past goaltender Anthony Morrone to get Team Canada on the board, and Fortino cut the deficit to two just over nine minutes later, going top corner from the slot.

With almost three minutes left to play, Canada would pull Lacasse in favor of an extra attacker, but Jeremy Gauthier found the empty net twice in 32 seconds for the Seigneurs to put the game out of reach.

Kohanchuk rounded out the scoring 24 seconds after Gauthier’s second goal.

Shots on goal finished 21-19 in favour of Mille-Îles.

Lacasse went the distance in the Canadian goal, finishing with 15 saves, while Morrone shared the Mille-Îles goaltending duties with Samuel Cardinal; the duo combined to make 16 stops.