Ottawa, ON – Casselman delivered one of its most complete offensive performances of the season Sunday night in Ottawa, using a dominant second period to pull away and defeat the Ottawa Jr Canadians 7–4 in a matchup between two of the top teams in the Martin Division.
Casselman 7, Ottawa 4
Casselman wasted little time setting the tone, opening the scoring midway through the first period when Marc-Olivier McCarthy jumped into the play and finished a setup from Simon Toupin and Thomas Ranger. That goal gave the Vikings momentum heading into the intermission, and they exploded coming out of the break.
Just 24 seconds into the second period, Mathieu Cloutier struck on the power play to double the lead. The Vikings kept pressing, and Alexis Lafrance took over the game with a quick pair of power-play goals, both set up by Skyler Beks, stretching the advantage to four. Lafrance wasn’t done there, completing a natural hat trick later in the period with another finish that pushed the Casselman lead to 5–0.
Ottawa finally found life midway through the second as Danik Marion got the Jr Canadians on the board, followed quickly by goals from Ben Cornick and Dax McKinnon to pull the home side within two. Casselman steadied itself before the break and regained control early in the third when McCarthy scored his second of the night to restore a three-goal cushion.
Mattias Côté responded for Ottawa later in the period, briefly cutting into the deficit, but any comeback hopes were put to rest when Tristan Simoneau added a late goal to seal the win.
Myles Boudreau was solid in goal for Casselman, turning aside 35 shots to earn the victory. Ottawa rotated through goaltenders as the game progressed, with Casselman’s second-period surge proving too much to overcome.
With the win, Casselman improved to 30-5-0-0, tightening the race near the top of the Martin Division. Ottawa slipped to 28-8-0-0 despite the late push.
