Oshawa Generals won their fourth consecutive game to defeat the Brantford Bulldogs 4-2 in their best-of-seven Eastern Conference semi-final series on Sunday, April 20, 2025.
The Generals entered game six of the series on a three-game winning streak, winning both games in Oshawa to tie the series at two before taking the lead in the series in game five on Saturday, April 19.
The Bulldogs, with their season on the line, got off on the wrong skate with Thomas Budnick getting called for cross-checking Beckett Sennecke and the Generals power play continued to stay hot, cashing in on the opportunity. With just 11 seconds left in the man advantage Colby Barlow set the middle of the blueline for Luca Marrelli who hammered a shot through an Andrew Gibson screen to open the scoring.
The Bulldogs went on the power-play following an errant stick catching Cole Brown and got the unit set for a Tomas Hamara screen shot from the middle of the line that was gloved down by Jacob Oster to keep the Generals ahead. Ryerson Leenders did his best to hold the Bulldogs in the game through the opening 20 minutes, denying a point-blank opportunity from Callum Ritchie with a tremendous shoulder stop and squeezing the knees to keep Colby Barlow from scoring on a one-timer from the right circle. Late in the frame, the Generals extended the lead on a broken play in the Bulldogs zone after Owen Protz stepped up for a hit on Owen Griffin, the puck rolled to Noah Powell who found Luca Marrelli sneaking in from the right point to feed Colby Barlow for the 2-0 lead heading into the first intermission.
The action started fast in the middle frame with the Generals extending their lead early in the second period, after Thomas Budnick was taken down to the ice by Noah Powell, the Generals winger recovered the puck behind the Bulldogs goal, feeding in front for Owen Griffin. The initial shot was denied on a pad save by Ryerson Leenders but quickly followed by Griffin, who gathered his own rebound to make it a 3-0 lead. The Bulldogs snapped to life just 32 seconds later when Nikolas Rossetto handling an out pass through neutral ice laying it forward to Jake O’Brien stepping in over the blueline on the right side. With Marek Vanacker flying to the front of the Oshawa net, O’Brien brought the two Generals defenders towards him feeding the back door play for Vanacker to tip past Oster, cutting the lead to 3-1 after 40 minutes.
The Bulldogs battled hard to start the final frame, throwing chance after chance at the Generals goal with Jacob Oster standing strong. Marek Vanacker had a pair of brilliant opportunities, first to the right side of the Generals goal looking at what appeared to be an open goal, getting the shot away, Oster made a tremendous right to left move to cut it off and keep the puck north of his goal line. With the Bulldogs net empty, Vanacker again found himself in the middle of the ice open with the puck only to have Oster steal it away, on the rebound Vanacker batted the puck into the scrum but Oster was able to scramble it back underneath him and hold on. Owen Griffin ended the Bulldogs season with an empty-net goal, sealing the Generals 4-1 win and the 4-2 series victory.
Story by Reed Duthie
