67’s hang tough with East-leading Petes as playoff drive beckons
Just in time for the playoffs, the Ottawa 67’s — in particular goalie Leo Lazarev — are finding another gear.
While the 67’s lost 2-0 to Peterborough in a Wednesday matinee at The Arena at TD Place, they hung in there with the Petes, the top team in the OHL’s Eastern Conference. The sixth-place 67’s will wrap up a playoff spot if they get a point in either of their weekend home dates or if the ninth-place North Bay Battalion comes up with anything less than six points in its remaining three games.
“It wasn’t our best game today, we were a little blah coming off a road trip, but we had a good third (period), we were right in it and we were a (goal) post away from tying that game,” said 67’s coach Jeff Brown. “I’m not entirely disappointed. That’s the first-place team in the conference. For us to be a goal away, we were that close — where we weren’t that close a month ago. We have to take the positives and keep battling.”
“They’re a great team and we were right there with them,” said Ottawa defenceman Noel Hoefenmayer.
The Petes took a 1-0 firstperiod lead when Logan DeNoble gathered a backhand pass and slid the puck past Lazarev, who was otherwise brilliant.
After a second-period fight between Ottawa’s Hudson Wilson and Peterborough’s Matt Spencer, the Petes controlled play in the 67’s end for an extended period of time, with several great scoring opportunities just failing to click.
The 67’s, playing “desperate hockey,” took charge in the third period, outshooting the visitors 11-6 — with a shot ringing off the Petes goalpost with four minutes left. But Peterborough put the game away with nine seconds left on an empty-netter by Steven Lorentz.
One reason for the 67’s recent improvement is the play of Lazarev, who traded good stops with Peterborough’s Scott Smith on Wednesday.
“It’s why he’s here,” said Brown. “He was supposed to be our go-to guy all year and he struggled a bit. But the last month, he’s been dynamite. He’s our guy going forward. Not that we don’t have trust in (Olivier Lafreniere), it’s just I feel strongly you need one guy heading into the playoffs and Leo’s kind of taken the ball here so we’ll let him run with it.”
“(Lazarev) was amazing, he was our best player by far,” said Hoefenmayer. “If he keeps playing that, we’ll keep winning games.”
“It’s simple, for the team to come together, they need a goalie,” said Lazarev. “I’m 20 years old soon and I have to play good.”
With playoffs beginning next week, the 67’s are doing some of the little things that Brown has been preaching all season.
“Everybody (has to make sacrifices),” said the coach. “There are ice packs in there that feel better after a win. That’s how you have to play. We’re in that desperate mode where it is playoff hockey, every game is must win.”
“It’s a long season and all the guys have at some point been bumped and gotten some bruises,” said Hoefenmayer. “It’s part of the game and you have to play through it.”
While the 67’s are still a couple of bodies short, Brown is hoping the more workmanlike attitude his players display on the road shows up at home on a more consistent basis.
“The guys play more desperate, more hard nosed, on the road,” he said. “Here, they want to get the fancy skates out, try and make some plays and think it’s going to be easy. It never is. If we brought our road game home, we’d have a much better home record.
“We got (Tye Felhaber’s) first game back today, he was a bit rusty. (Ben) Evans is out, (Kody) Clark is out, (Jared) Steege will be back Sunday from a suspension. Clark (upper-body injury) will be out for a bit, Evans, hopefully we’ll see him this weekend.”
The 67’s are in sixth place in the East, two points ahead of Niagara and three ahead of Sudbury. Ottawa faces Oshawa on Saturday and Hamilton on Sunday (both 2 p.m. home games) to close off its regular season.
“We don’t want to back in, we want to win,” said Brown. “That’s the mindset, we want to win the two games and finish sixth, finish as high as we can.”
Said Hoefenmayer: “We need four points. We’ll be disappointed with anything less than that. We can compete with anybody in the East.”