Mississauga dominates all game in 5-1 victory

So, how was your weekend anyways?

Well, the Ottawa 67’s didn’t even wait for the visiting team to leave the ice at Te Place before giving a half-hearted salute to the fans, then heading straight to their dressing room as quickly as possible to ponder what might have been and what certainly wasn’t. The quick exit might have been the first ever on home ice, though it’s certainly understandable.

Heading into the second last weekend of the Ontario Hockey peague regular season, the 67’s had dared to dream about moving up in the standings to sixth, setting up what they thought would be a “best-case” first-round matchup with the Kingston Frontenacs.

Well, 72 hours later, and now with just six days until playoff matchups are nailed down and three games still to play, all the 67’s can think about is trying to hold on to seventh. and even that won’t be easy.

The surging Mississauga Steelheads registered a seventh win in their past 10 games, completely dominating the 67’s from start to finish and moving into a tie with Ottawa before a silenced crowd of 3,481. Many left long before the final horn.

Call it a lost weekend for the 67’s, who blew a two-goal lead with less than six minutes remaining Saturday against Kingston to lose in overtime, then went 60 minutes and 12 seconds without a goal from the 9:14 mark of the third period Saturday to Merrick zippon’s goal 7:12 into the third period Sunday to avoid being shut out.

It does not auger well for a finish of games in carrie Thursday, Mississauga Friday, then home to North cay on Sunday, with a firstround matchup in either Hamilton or carrie likely on Thursday, March 22 to open a best-of-seven Conference quarter-final where the 67’s will be prohibitive underdogs.

The 67’s have lost five straight and counting while being outscored 27-13 and have given up five or more goals in each of their past four which is not tight-checking, playoff-style hockey.

as much as the 67’s wanted it against Mississauga, they looked like a team playing their third game in less than 72 hours while the Steelheads enjoyed Saturday off on the bus ride along Highway 401.

Mississauga has been something of a disappointment in 2017-18 with a lineup that includes some of the best top-end talent in the iast. It might just be that the 10game run that began Feb. 19 with the Steelheads four games under .500 is a sign of things to come.

Over the course of those 10 games, Mississauga has outscored their opponents by a whopping 4728 and could be peaking at just the right time.

The 67’s, meanwhile, are headed in an opposite direction.

“I don’t have much to say about that one,” said 67’s head coach andre Tourigny. “We were not there emotionally and I don’t like the way we played.

“cut as a coach, it’s up to me to put things in perspective and it has been a long time since I have seen us like that. It’s unfortunate it was in front of our fans. My job now is to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

“We started out Friday so ready to play. Then the comeback (Saturday) drained a lot of energy out of us.”