Jonathon Brodie - Recorder & Times

The Brockville Braves showed something on Friday that last year’s team didn’t have much of.

The Braves pulled out a 3-2 win over the Nepean Raiders at the Memorial Centre in a game that looked more like a playoff matchup than just a regular season meeting and it’s been awhile since Brockville played in one of those.

“We got our first taste of it in a long time and that’s playoff hockey,” said Braves coach Colin Birkas about a Nepean team currently in seventh place, but are just three points off from being out of a playoff spot. “They were fighting for their lives and we got to see what it was like.”

The biggest point that stood out in the Braves game play is that they didn’t back down from the Raiders physical attack. Nepean was relentless at times, physically pestering Brockville and giving Braves players a face full of their glove anytime they came near goalie Marshall Frappier.

It would have been easy for Brockville to take their foot off the gas pedal physically and let their skill do the talking, which is probably a style better suited for them.

Instead, the Braves kept pushing, even antagonizing opponents as they were getting hit and doing it with a smile.

Brockville was by no means just receiving the punishment with the likes of 5-foot-6 Devin Moore — the Braves smallest player — even dishing out a solid body check.

“The great equalizer is that team is literally fighting for their playoff lives. We knew that was going to be an issue and you can talk about it all day long, but it’s hard to manufacture pure desire and they had that,” said Birkas, a night after getting beat 3-2 by the Cornwall Colts on the road Thursday. “I thought we were physical and we challenged them in that respect.”

The Braves opened the scoring in the first period when Corey Caruso scored in his fourth straight game.

With the game tied 1-1 going into the third period, Birkas said he told Noah Jordan what he needed to work on and, “gave him a shift to think about it.” Jordan must have thought long and hard about his coach’s pointers as he ended up potting a pair of goals in the final frame.

“I said (to Jordan), ‘Make me look bad,’ and when you give a kid an opportunity to do that they’ll take you up on it,” the coach added. “That’s great to see. That’s what this is all about, challenging kids and seeing how they respond and as a coach that’s why you sit a kid for a shift. You want to see that push back and that’s why he’s going to be a real good hockey player.”

Brockville’s style of play Friday might have been a bit of a breath of fresh air for people who watched the team get swept by the Carleton Place Canadians in last year’s playoffs.

The Canadians were less pestering and more physically dominant and imposing than the Raiders were Friday, but the Braves showed glimpses that if they start to get pushed around they will quickly push back.

Last year’s Brockville team is more skilled than the current one, but the 2015-16 Braves never consistently showed that grit to their game when it was needed and it was the one thing the organization knew was lacking. It was also the one thing that separated them and the Canadians, who went on to win the CCHL title.

The Braves will host the Smiths Falls Bears, who currently sit in eighth place, on Sunday at the Memorial Centre. Puck drop is 3 p.m.

Original Article at Recorder.ca