Petes fall to league-leading 67’s in Ottawa
Red-hot Tye Felhaber’s 34th, 35th goals leads home team to 4-2 victory on Sunday afternoon
OTTAWA – The OHL’s hottest shooter had his sights set accurately on the Peterborough Petes on Sunday afternoon.
Tye Felhaber’s league leading 34th and 35th goals of the season lifted the first place Ottawa 67’s past the Petes 4-2 in front of 3,239 fans in the Nation’s Capital. Felhaber has scored 11 goals in Ottawa’s past six games.
The 67’s (24-4-3-1) hold a 12point lead atop the Eastern Conference and are eight points ahead of the Western Conference leading London Knights.
It was just the second loss in seven games for the Petes who sit fifth in the Eastern Conference at 17-13-0-0. They won their only other meeting against Ottawa this season 7-3 in their second game of the season.
The second period proved to be the turning point when Ottawa outscored the Petes 2-0 and outshot them 14-3 despite a final shot total of 30-30.
Petes’ head coach Rob Wilson felt they let a winnable game slip away.
“We gave up a goal at the end of the first when we were winning 2-1 we shouldn’t have given up,” said Wilson. “That was the momentum changer. We didn’t get the momentum back until the third.
“We could have won a game in Ottawa. The first and third we were very good. We got a couple of power play goals which is good for confidence.”
There were no goals in the first half of the opening period and four in the second half, three on power plays.
Ottawa struck first on a power play when Sasha Chmelevski took Noel Hoefenmayer’s pass and snapped a wrist shot past Hunter Jones making his 27th start in 30 games.
The Petes, who entered the game with the OHL’s worst power play at 12.4 per cent, scored 21 seconds apart on both ends of a two-man advantage to jump ahead 2-1 at 14:07.
Semyon Der-Arguchintsev threw the puck in front and it deflected off a defender’s skate past goalie Cedric Andree at 13:46. It extended Der-Arguchintsev’s points streak to seven games. Der-Arguchintsev left the game late in the second period
with an ankle injury after a hit into the boards with an injury and did not return.
“I don’t think it’s serious but, maybe, I’m being hopeful,” said Wilson.
Chris Paquette rushed the puck into Ottawa’s zone on the second goal before the puck ended up on Pavel Gogolev’s stick in
the slot and he snapped it over Andree’s shoulder.
Felhaber tied it at 16:39 when he danced in alone on Jones and deked him to the forehand after Ottawa won a puck battle in the corner.
“You have to win battles and you have to be on the right side of the puck,” said Wilson. “We could have done a much better job on that goal and it gave them some life. It’s a great clip for learning. We went in fishing for the puck rather than being on the right side of the puck.”
Felhaber made it 3-2 on a power play. The 67’s worked the puck around until Felhaber blasted a shot home. Merrick Rippon put a shot through a crowd for a 4-2 lead at 17:41.
The Petes have three games left until their Christmas break. They’ll host the Flint Firebirds on Thursday, visit the Guelph Storm on Friday and host Ottawa 2 p.m. Sunday.
NOTES: Former Petes’ coach Vince Malette was on the bench with his former Ottawa 67’s coaching partners Brian Kilrea and Bert O’Brien during a 67’s alumni game Saturday against the Gatineau Olympiques. Malette and his family went public last year with his battle with Alzheimer’s disease. He was the Petes head coach from 2006-08… The three stars were 1. Sasha Chmelevski (O); 2. Tye Felhaber (O); 3, Cedric Andree (O)… The hardest working Pete was Cameron Supryka.