67’S TAKE BITE OUT OF FAVOURED BULLDOGS
Ottawa ties series heading back to TD Place thanks to wild third period in Hamilton
Ottawa 67’s head coach Andre Tourigny has insisted for more than a week that he and his staff had a game plan to beat the Hamilton Bulldogs. He just wasn’t going to share it, certainly not outside the walls of the 67’s dressing room.
“It’s between the players and us,” said Tourigny.
And outside of the 67’s travelling party, Tourigny couldn’t find a lot of believers either. Not after Hamilton went 5-0 versus the 67’s in the Ontario Hockey League regular season, then won Game 1 by a 6-3 margin.
Well folks can start believing now after local boy Sam Bitten capped a wild seven-goal third period with the game-winner at 17:59 as the 67’s stunned the No. 1-seeded Bulldogs 5-4 with a crowd of 3,421 looking on in disbelief at the First Ontario Centre in Hamilton Sunday evening.
The improbable upset evened the OHL Eastern Conference best-of-seven quarter-final at a game a piece and the 67’s couldn’t get out of Hamilton quick enough, jumping on the bus back to an overnight stop in Bowmanville.
And as crazy as it sounds, the 67’s now have home-ice advantage heading into games Tuesday and Wednesday night in The Arena at TD Place in games 3 and 4, both at 7 p.m.
Tied at 1-1 after 40 minutes, the two teams that finished 24 points apart in the standings staged a wild final period with the 67’s outscoring the Bulldogs 4-3 to winit.
“Obviously, we have a lot of character in our room,” said Sasha Chmelevski, who gave the 67’s a 3-2 lead just past the midway point of the crazy third period. “We push things to the limit every night.
“Coach just came out and said that anything we do (Sunday) night, we do it from the heart.
“We’re playing almost overtime hockey every shift and we gave it our all (Sunday).
“Now we go home with home-ice advantage and expect (Ottawa) to be buzzing. And we’re going to see what we can do Tuesday and Wednesday.”
The third period opened just as it finished with goal after goal and momentum swings back and forth.
Unheralded Shaw Boomhower, a one-goal scorer all season, sent the 67’s up at 3:38 only to have Hamilton’s Justin Lemcke tie it 30 seconds later.
Chmelevski sent Ottawa up 3-2 at 10:44 and when 67’s captain Travis Barron sent them up 4-2 at 12:22, things were looking good.
But the two-goal margin lasted just 1:46 before Hamilton’s Riley Stillman cut into it at 13:36.
And when the 67’s took a penalty just moments later, it set the stage for Brandon Saigeon, a two-goal scorer in Game 1, to tie things at 16:56. The play sure looked a whole lot like goalie interference, but the referees saw different.
Give the 67’s credit, though. They didn’t let the non-call nor blowing the lead get them down and Saigeon took a hooking penalty with just 2:11 to play.
And that set the stage for Bitten with his second goal of the series.
Hamilton head coach John Gruden, the one-time Ottawa Senator (1990-2000), was miffed at the start his team had in Game 1 and his message must have gotten through.
“(Ottawa) likely has a game plan to try and get under our skin,” said Gruden. “We have to be disciplined, keep our mouths shut and just play our game.”
That’s what the Bulldogs did from the get-go and just 63 seconds in Bitten’s big brother Will sent the Bulldogs up a goal and they just poured it on, holding an 8-0 advantage in shots on goal before the 67’s even registered their first shot after 6:10.
Fortunately, the 67’s found a way to weather the onslaught in front of Olivier Tremblay and got out of the opening period to regroup down just the one goal, even outshooting the home side 8-8 over the final 14 minutes courtesy of two power plays.
They even caught a break from the officials when a quick whistle negated a Hamilton goal at 10:32.
Into the second, Tremblay’s glove hand kept the deficit at one on a couple of spectacular saves early that gave his team a lift as the 67’s seemed to take the momentum with some sustained pressure in the offensive zone.
The hard work by the 67’s paid off when Boomhower tipped one home to tie things at 9:28, taking a feed from defenceman Nikita Okhotyuk. The goal came just seconds after Boomhower fired a wicked shot off the goalpost.