67’s show up on Sportsnet
After losing their first two games of what will be six road tilts in succession the Ottawa 67’s rebounded with a big victory under the bright television lights of Rogers Sportsnet.
Playing on TV and before more than 7,000 fans in Hamilton proved to be a nice wake-up call for the 67’s who upended the host Bulldogs 5-2. The Saturday matinee triumph for the 67’s came after they were white-washed 8-0 by the Erie Otters on Friday night and drubbed 6-3 by the Niagara IceDogs on Thursday evening.
To be sure, Ottawa coach-general manager Jeff Brown was impressed with the turnaround shown by his young team, telling Sportsnet reporter Rob Faulds during a live in-game interview that “it’s nice to see us battle back and show up to play well after what happened in Erie.”
The 67’s trailed 1-0 and 2-1 before scoring four straight goals to upend a veteran Hamilton team that had cuffed the Eastern Conference-leading Oshawa Generals 5-1 the night before.
Most-impressive in the Ottawa victory was the play of its young defensemen led by Noel Hoefenmayer, Peter Stratis and Kevin Bahl. All played major minutes over the course of a game that included a stretch in the third period when the 67’s were handed three straight over-lapping minor penalties — but managed to shut down the Bulldogs.
Hoefenmayer has a 1999 birth date while Stratis and Bahl were both born in 2000 as was another rookie defender, Carter Robertson. In fact, even with the presence of steady overager Chris Martenet — recently acquired in a trade with the London Knights — Ottawa has the youngest corps of defensemen in the Ontario Hockey League.
In all, a team effort was the feature of the Ottawa victory that included good goal-tending from Leo Lazarev and nice work by recently-added forwards Mathieu Foget and Zack Dorval.
Foget had three assists for Ottawa in his seventh game since joining the 67’s from Division 1, Merrimack College. And while Dorval — in his third game for Ottawa after being acquired in a trade with the Kingston Frontenacs — did not put a point he won 5 of 7 face-offs and had strong shifts on the penalty kill.
In possession of an Eastern Conference playoff spot with 41 points from a record of 18-20-5, the 67’s have three more tough road games in a row coming up — at Windsor, London and Kitchener.
But after that, if the 67’s take advantage of home ice, they should be in favourable position down the stretch with 16 of their final 22 regular-season games slated to be played in Ottawa.
Whatever happened to the Score? They had very good hilights of NHL games.