67’s tip playoff scales in their favour against Fish
If the Ontario Hockey League playoffs were to open this week, the Ottawa 67’s are in.
And they owe it to their head-tohead record with the ninth-place Mississauga Steelheads.
Veterans Sasha Chmelevski and captain Travis Barron broke a 2-2 tie in the third period and accounted for five goals to allow the 67’s to boost their hold on eighth to four points with a workmanlike 6-2 win Wednesday at the Arena at TD Place.
Ottawa netminder Olivier Tremblay turned back 34 shots in front of a crowd that included 67’s goaltending legend Darren Pang and if ever there can be a four-pointer in mid-January, this one was it.
“The harder we work, the better we do,” said Barron after recording his second career OHL hat trick. “We came focused and we were ready to go.
“Every game is a war now and Ollie has been a rock back there for us.”
On paper, the two teams seem headed in opposite directions since mid-December.
Since the 67’s were last at the .500 mark back on Dec. 14, they had won just two of nine games with two losses in overtime heading up against Mississauga.
The Steelheads, meanwhile, have gone 9-4-0 since Dec. 10 when they ended a nine-game losing streak and with high-end talent like Michael McLeod (12th overall, New Jersey, 2016), Owen Tippett (10th overall, Florida, 2017) and Nicolas Hague (34th overall, Las Vegas, 2017), the Steelheads just may make a move.
The 67’s have not won two in a row since last Nov. 10 and 12, which was also the culmination of their third three-game win streak, which is a season high.
And both teams have just 25 games to play as the 67’s continue a stretch of eight games at TD Place in January with Hamilton in town Saturday afternoon and Peterborough Sunday.
Making things difficult for the 67’s is that just five of their remaining games are against teams with sub-.500 records, so nothing is going to be easy.
The good news is the 67’s hold a 2-0 advantage in the season series with the Steelheads with two more to play in March, two games that may prove pivotal come the final day of the regular season March 18.
The 67’s escaped the opening period somehow up 1-0 despite being outshot 13-9 by the Steelheads.
The only goal came about when captain Barron finished off some nifty passing on the power play 14:22 in with his 10th of the season.
Hague, the Steelheads’ leading scorer, got that one back just past the midway point of the second, only to see the 67’s Chmelevski count his 18th less than a minute later. Chmelevski is just three off his junior career high of 21 set last season.
The 67’s also had breakaway misses by Barron and Kody Clark when they had a chance to make things easier on themselves.
The misses could have come to haunt them less than three minutes into the third when Tippett fired a wrister past Tremblay in the Ottawa goal just three seconds into a 67’s penalty.
The Steelheads may be flirting with mediocrity, but their power play ranks third in the entire OHL.
Less than three minutes later, Chmelevski was parked all along as the side of the Mississauga goal to restore a one-goal 67’s lead and the 67’s never looked back.
Austen Keating scored into en empty net to make it 6-2 in the final minute that also featured a playofftype scrap.
Ottawa head coach Andre Tourigny praised the work of the line of Barron, Chmelevski and Tye Felhaber.
“Those guys have been wanting to be put back together,” said Tourigny, who reunited the trio of veterans of late. “Sometimes when you take something away from somebody, then give it back to them, they work hard to make sure we don’t take it away again.