All season long the Six Nations Chiefs have been eyeing a berth in the Mann Cup as the benchmark for a successful 2012 campaign. The team did what they had to do on Tuesday evening, winning at home to make the MSL finals 2-1 in favour of the Peterborough Lakers. However, the club still wouldn’t be able to put their guard down in game four as the series shifted back to Peterborough. A win for the Chiefs would tie the series heading back to Six Nations; a loss would force Six Nations to win the next three straight in order to reach their Mann Cup goal.
As is always the case, the arena was packed with Peterborough fans. For the Chiefs to have any success they would have to get on the board early and put a run together to take the crowd out of it. Try as they might, Brandon Miller stood in the way. It would be Peterborough’s John Tavares who would open the scoring, and John Grant Jr a short time later who would give the Lakers a 2-0 lead. Miller stopped all thirteen shots he faced in the frame.
Goals from Rhys Duch and Stephen Keogh at seven and a half minutes, and slightly before the twelve minute mark respectively tied the game at twos. Mac Allen would take a double minor penalty for checking from behind to give the Chiefs, who had all the momentum, a chance to pull ahead. Mark Steenhuis is by far the best penalty killer in the summer game as anyone who’s played the powerplay against him will tell you. Normally he grabs the ball and runs laps for two minutes. But he will catch defences off guard sometimes and break in for a goal, as was the case thirty-eight minutes into the double minor. When Brad Self was called for holding it put the Chiefs up five-on-three and Craig Point went to work scoring the tying and go ahead goals twenty-five seconds apart, both on the powerplay. The goal gave the Chiefs their first lead of the night, and it would still be 4-3 as the teams headed to the dressing rooms.
The lead was short lived though as Tavares would score his fourteenth goal of the playoffs just seventy-one seconds into the third. Colin Doyle would answer with his first of the evening to regain the lead and Duch stretched it to two less than a minute later. Not to be outdone, Jamie Lincoln and Chad Culp, one second more than a minute apart would pull the Lakers back to even with a pair. Tom Montour made the score 7-6 for the Chiefs, but this time no teammate would provide a second goal. Lincoln and Grant would connect seventeen seconds apart to swing the lead back to the Lakers side of the board for the first time since early in the second.
In between the 5:18 mark of the third and 9:35 there were seven goals scored to tie the score twice and give someone the lead three times. The next four and a half minutes seemed like an eternity to go without a goal, but Point would complete his hat trick to, yes, you guess it, tie the game at eight. However, the deadlock wouldn’t last long as Steenhuis would drop his second of the game, and fourteenth of the playoffs to put Peterborough up by one. This time the go-ahead goal would stand as the Lakers would win the game 9-8 and put a stranglehold on the series three games to one.
For the first time in the series the two teams went a twenty minute period without either side taking a penalty. That period was the third, and there were ten goals scored. Clearly when these two get down to playing lacrosse, they’re good at it.
Both goaltenders were superb in their nets with Miller earning the win making forty-two of fifty-one shots including, as mentioned, all thirteen he faced in the first. Carlson made thirty-eight saves off forty-six shots and was saddled with the loss. While he didn’t score any goals in game four, he did add two assists to give him seven playoff points.
The Lakers can clinch the series and earn the right to host the Mann Cup on Saturday night in Six Nations.
