Mississauga fends off 67’s in playoff opener
Ottawa starts hot but falters in 6-2 loss to No. 2 seed
For the first 10 minutes or so, things were looking pretty good for the Ottawa 67’s in their Ontario Hockey League playoff opener against the Mississauga Steelheads on Friday night.
The seventh-seed 67’s came into the game trying to upset the No. 2 Steelheads, but fell short in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference quarter-final series, losing 6-2 at the Hershey Centre.
Just over seven minutes into the first period, Ottawa took the initial lead in the game with forward Sasha Chmelevski’s power play goal.
It was an ideal start for the 67’s — but they failed to continue that momentum.
It was all Steelheads for the rest of the period, as they scored three goals to go up 3-1.
As the game wore on, both teams got more physical.
That only escalated after the Steelheads made it 4-1 early in the second period.
67’s captain Travis Barron got into a fight right after the goal, resulting in a two-minute power play for Ottawa. Barron and Steelheads defenceman Austin Osmanski racked up a combined 17 penalty minutes.
“We were down 4-1 at the time, I asked the guy to go and we ended up getting a power play out of it,” Barron said after the game.
“Might as well try to spark the teammates.”
With less than three minutes left in the second period, 67’s forward Zach Dorval burst down the right wing and bounced the puck off goaltender Jacob Ingham and in, cutting the Steelheads’ lead to two.
Despite the late surge, Ottawa came out flat to start the third period and gave up a goal just over a minute in, making it 5-2.
After 67’s coach Jeff Brown took a risk, pulling the goalie with just under seven minutes to play, an empty netter sealed the deal.
While the 67’s weren’t surprised by much from the Steelheads, saying they came as advertised, they admitted to struggling to deal with Mississauga’s speed.
“They’ve got a really fast team. We didn’t get the spots, we didn’t get the pucks, we didn’t out-will them in any way in that second half,” Brown said.
“We had a great start, it was really good eight minutes in. We have got to play a whole game like that.”
Coming into this game, Brown had not been happy with the team’s performance over their last four periods of play, dating back to the third period of a win over the Oshawa Generals last week.
However, Brown said Friday’s performance was not an extension of that slump.
After all, the 67’s had a good start to the first period.
“I thought it started great. Then for some reason we just changed our whole intensity level,” he said.
Brown wasn’t the only one disappointed in the difference between the team’s first 10 minutes and the rest of their game.
“For the first 10 minutes of the first period we played lights out,” Ottawa defenceman Ryan Orban said. “But we kind of took a step back from the stuff that was working and went back to some of the bad habits we had earlier in the season.”
Despite a loss that could have gone differently, team morale wasn’t too low.
Both Brown and the players say all they need to do is play more consistently and keep up with the Steelheads’ speed to split the first two road games of the series.
“It’s a new season, we start off fresh. We just have to build off the last month we had,” Brown said.
Game 2 of the best-of-seven series goes Sunday at 2 p.m. at the Hershey Centre. Special to Postmedia News