Jonathon Brodie - Recorder & Times

The last time the Brockville Braves faced off against the Carleton Place Canadians it was the catalyst for the team’s best winning stretch of the season.

The Braves were need for another boost against the CCHL’s top team at home Friday, but all they ended up getting out of it was another step backward after losing 3-0 to the Canadians at home.

The Braves haven’t given much for fans at the Memorial Centre to cheer about these days as they now haven’t scored a goal in two straight home games and haven’t found the back of the net on home ice in 122 minutes and 50 seconds.

“The bench seems good. All the kids are positive and I think they believe in their abilities, but I think it’s tough to trick yourself when you’ve been shutout twice in the last three games,” said Braves assistant coach Ben Munroe.

Things didn’t always look so bad for the Braves Friday. They came out of the gates strong, looking to bounce back from three consecutive losses and become the first team to beat the Canadians three times this season.

That swing of momentum for Brockville lasted about four minutes after the puck dropped and then went in Carleton Place’s favour when Andrew Dodson opened the scoring.

After that the Canadians could have setup a mailing address in Brockville’s zone with how long they were able to stay in the Braves end. On the other side of things, Brockville wouldn’t have been able to lick a stamp in the amount of time they would carry the puck into Carleton Place’s zone and then it would come out.

That in many ways is sort of an all encompassing example to describe the Braves’ problems right now. They’ll hang in there for awhile, but as soon as things don’t go their way the saying, “when it rains, it pours,” seems to apply to them.

The same thing happened in the second period where again the wind was taken out of their sails after a situation that looked so promising.

Braves Noah Jordan was robbed of picking up his seventh goal of the season when Canadians goalie Connor Hughes stopped the puck right on the goal line. A minute later, Jordan was given a boarding penalty and Carleton Place capitalized to make it 2-0.

Trailing the Canadians after 40 minutes has been a death sentence for opponents all year and in the third period the Braves sank with Carleton Place putting the icing on the cake.

Friday’s result was the third time Brockville has been kept off the scoreboard this month and they now have a league-high six shutouts pinned against them. The Braves have now lost four straight games and have scored just three goals over that cold stretch, while giving up 11.

When Brockville is handed a penalty a song by the band 4 Non Blondes titled What’s Up is sometimes played over the Memorial Centre speakers and part of the chorus goes, “I said hey, what going on?”

These days Braves fans are probably asking themselves the same thing.

“A couple bad bounces that go in our net and it’s almost like they’re defeated, so mentally we’re trying to pick the guys up,” Munroe said. “It’s tough to keep them positive and believing that they’re going to score goals when they keep trying to climb this mountain. Once we do jump the hurdle I think it’ll to be fine, it’s just that we got to get out of this slump.”

The Braves will try to get off their losing skid Saturday when they take on the Kanata Lasers at 8:30 p.m. at the Smiths Falls Memorial Centre. The game will close out a day where every team in the CCHL will see action in Smiths Falls with things kicking off at 2 p.m. between the Smiths Falls Bears and Gloucester Rangers.

Original Article at Recorder.ca