Jonathon Brodie - Recorder & Times

Friday’s game will be added to the list of mysteries from the Brockville Braves this season.

There’s been questions surrounding the Braves all year like how long would it take for the players to click? Where does the team’s offence go for long stretches at a time?

The latest query is a bit more positive —  how did the Braves pull out a 5-1 win over the Hawkesbury Hawks at home Friday?

The answer, a pair of 2000-born players.

For most of the game — particularly in the opening two periods —  Brockville didn’t look like a team that had been on a week layoff. They looked like a team that had never even played together.

Braves passes were picked off or sent sailing to no one. Brockville kept getting hit, but not giving much of it back. Icings were plentiful by the Braves, while setting up in the offensive zone or charging towards the net was basically obsolete.

Brockville would get one shot and then the next one wouldn’t come for quite some time. In the first period the Braves picked up just six shots.

In the second period it took them 11 minutes to get their first shot of the frame and seconds later after it Matt Halle got another puck on net that sneaked by Hawks Jacob Standen that tied the game 1-1. Brockville didn’t get another shot until eight minutes later and they finished the first 40 minutes with 11 total shots compared to the 36 put up by Hawkesbury.

Friday’s game looked to be heading in the direction of the type of matchup the Braves put up often early in the season where the scoreboard made things look as if the game was close, but anybody watching it would have known better.

“At the beginning of the year we both know how this game would have turned out,” said Braves coach Colin Birkas. “I don’t know if it’s because the trade being done and that feeling that we’re here together no matter what, but I feel the group is coming tighter together.”

Halle, however, was just getting started and in the third period he potted three more goals to bump his tally to six for the year, showing off skill, grit and determination in getting each one.

Jacob Sutton added an empty netter to get the fifth goal for the Braves.

If there was another major bright spot for Brockville it netminder Yaniv Perets, who turns 17-years-old Saturday. His athletic skill mixed with a little bit of luck shined for the Braves, while his team hung him out to dry at times. Perets, who has put up a handful of very good starts this year, had his best performance Friday and finished with 54 saves.

“The 20-year-olds were so pumped. They were the ones chasing down to make sure Halle got the puck and then he got fourth and you get him another puck,” Birkas said. "It’s Perets’ birthday tomorrow, so they say, ‘What do you want for your birthday? 60 shots sound good?’

With the win, and the Kemptville 73s losing 3-1 to the Carleton Place Canadians the same night, Brockville now climbs into fifth place and if the playoffs started tomorrow the Braves would meet up with the Hawks in the first round.

Birkas has stated for the last several weeks that he would not jockey for a position in the standings in a bid to matchup with a particular team, but after back-to-back wins against the Hawks would the Braves coach change his stance on that statement?

“I’d be lying to you if I said I didn’t think about it,” Birkas said. “We can beat anyone of those teams (Hawks, Cornwall Colts or Ottawa Jr. Senators) out of the playoffs and anyone of those teams can beat us out of the playoffs.”

The Braves will travel to Cumberland to take on the Grads on Sunday before hosting their regular season home closer next Friday against the Smiths Falls Bears.

Original article at Recorder.ca