A great goaltending performance and a pair of goals from an unheralded source led the Ottawa Senators rookies over their Montreal counterparts 2-1 to close out the London Rookie tournament.
The Senators tied for first with Pittsburgh, both finishing with 2-1 records after the Pens missed their chance to stay perfect and fell to the Leafs 6-2 on Sunday evening. Ottawa's lone loss came at the hands of the Penguins.
Matt O'Connor made 46 saves for the win, while Francis Perron scored both Ottawa goals, the first one driving to the net deflect a puck past Zach Fucale after a shot/pass from Max McCormick. His second one was prettier, as he deked around a Habs defenseman and beat Fucale with a nice wrist shot on the power play. Fucale was almost O'Connor's equal in a goaltending duel, making 42 saves of his own.
Dryden Hunt was the lone Canadien to beat O'Connor, who played the whole game and fared much better than on Friday night when he played the second half and allowed 3 goals on 23 shots.
The Senators have either been first or tied for first in every rookie tournament since 2008, not that anyone is counting.
Notable standouts from this tournament include Max McCormick, who has the fiery runaway freight train attitude in a smallish body, and Ben Harpur who has shown a physical side. Randy Lee suggested Harpur would be in the mix for a call-up this season because of his ability to play the left or right side, and that ability to play the body.
This summer's first round pick, Thomas Chabot, made some errors that you would expect from a first year player, but also showed an ability to recover from those and not let it affect his game going forward. He might get an invite to stick around and play an exhibition game but will certainly be sent back to Saint John before too long because there is no need to rush him at this point in time.
Now the players will await the announcement of who will be invited to stick around for the main training camp which will begin later this week, and who will be sent home immediately. Players getting invited will joint the veterans and report for physicals and the always enjoyable testing on Thursday, and on-ice workouts will begin on Friday.
It is expected that nearly 60 players will be invited to camp, and will be split into 3 groups to make it functional. They will have just 3 days before 40 of them will take to the ice for a split squad game against Toronto, with one game here and one in T.O. a week from today.