After their indifferent play on Friday, the Ottawa 67's came to play today. This was a completely different team. In addition to getting 3 goals from Tyler Graovac, Ryan Martindale had a three point afternoon with 2 goals and an assist, Adam Sedlak had his first as an Ottawa 67's and 2 assists and Sean Monahan scored his first OHL goal.
After cycling back to pick up his stick near the goalie, Ryan Martindale put the 67's on the board early with a shot from near the blue line that didn't look like he was trying to score. It certainly caught JP Anderson napping and it was in the back of the net. Adam Sedlak assisted on that goal.
But the Majors responded right back within a minute when Rob Flick scored his first of the season. But that would be their last goal for a very...very...long time.
Ottawa simply dominated...they did everything that they didn't do on Friday. They were hard on the puck, their passes were crisp and on-target and they were plain old tough to play against. And they got some luck along the way.
The run of five goals started with an innocent-enough looking shot when Tyler Graovac drove hard to the net. It looked like he might go around but with a deft back-hand he slid it under the left pad of Anderson and the 67's were back on top for good.
Adam Sedlak's goal, the eventual GWG came on the 67's first power play when his shot from the blue line beat Anderson to the blocker side. He may have been screened by Nesbitt. Now lest you think that the Majors were not trying - it should be noted that at this point, the SOGs were 9 - 7 in Ottawa's favour. The big difference being that Ottawa had scored on 3 of their 9 shots while the Majors only scored once in their 7 shots.
It's interesting to look at the SOGs and recall how the game was played. Although the 67's only outshot the Majors by 1 in the second, the 67's completely outplayed the Majors for most of that frame. But when the Majors got their second goal of the game, a puck that was redirected past Perugini by his own player, the Majors were rejuvenated even though the score was 6 - 2. But they were unable to convert their new-found inspiration into goals.
With Graovac's third goal of the game to make it 7 - 2 in the third, the 67's kind of laid-off and the Majors tried to make a game of it. But they lost valuable time taking penalties and the 67's, especially Perugini, played well enough to hold them off.
So the 67's end the winning streak of the Majors with a strong 7 - 2 and now have a 2-2 record in this early season.
Random Thoughts:
- The Majors were playing their third games in three days having hosted Windsor on Friday (winning 5-1) and traveling to Belleville on Saturday (winning 5-3) but Anderson did not play on Saturday.
- Ryan Hanes has way more attitude this year. He's not taking any gruff from anyone and is dropping the gloves without hesitation. He's also thriving in a steady gig as a forward - a game star on Friday and the Hardest Working 67's today. Tyler Graovac's second goal was the direct result of Ryan's hard work to bring the puck to the front of the net.
- And Tyler Graovac is starting the season very strongly having amassed 4 points already in 4 games (3 goals and an assist) considering that he had 9 points all last season in 52 games.
- Antony Peters replaced JP Anderson after the 6th Ottawa goal at about the halfway mark of the game. He is rather territorial about his space, regularly slashing the ankles of opposing interlopers.
- The 67's scored on 3 of their 7 power plays and for the other 4, they maintained effective control and possession for the most part. They were good power plays.
- As for their 2 penalty kills: first off - good on them for staying out of the box and second - they limited the Majors to three shots between the two advantages.
- Perugini had a strong game - he made some amazing saves including a hard shot that went off his mask. That one looked like it stung.
No comments:
Post a Comment