After posting back-to-back 40-plus win seasons, the
Barberpoles only mustered up 16 victories in their first season at Scotiabank
Place, eight on “home ice”, although it didn’t feel as though there was any
home-ice advantage, and eight on the road.
Along the way, we saw a revolving door between the pipes, a
decimated defence that was made up of mostly rookies by the end of the year,
and an offence that only seemed consistent when it had the man advantage.
What resulted was a 38-point finish, nine points back of the
next –lowest Erie Otters, and 21 points back of the Peterborough Petes, the
other team that didn’t qualify for the playoffs in the Eastern Conference.
To put this in perspective, the last time Ottawa missed the
playoffs, current 67's Dante Salituro, Andrew Abou-Assaly, Connor Brown,
Jonathan Duchesne, Nevin Guy and Jake Middleton weren't yet born. Jacob Blair, Mathieu Desautels, Taylor Davis
and John Urbanic were born during that year's playoffs. Howard Darwin and Earl Montagano still owned
the team and Chris Byrne was playing Junior ‘A’.
The 2012 pre-season looked promising, but perhaps fans put
too much stock into three pre-season games, two against the Quebec League’s
Gatineau Olympiques and one against the Kingston Frontenacs. All three were victories, as the 67’s were
the only undefeated OHL team in exhibition play, but their inability to keep
the puck out of their net was already evident in those three matches.
In a run that saw Ottawa only pull out one win in their
first six regular season contests, they allowed 26 goals. By the end of October, with four wins in 14
games, it was evident that defence was a problem. Somehow, it managed to falter even more.
On the same day, the Barberpoles shook up their goaltending
situation as they peddled Keegan Wilson to Guelph, while acquiring Clint
Windsor from Mississauga.
Blair ended up being the beneficiary of Ottawa’s poor
record. Chris Byrne allowed the
youngster Blair to get as many starts as possible late in the year, as he and
Windsor each appeared in 33 games.
Although not fully the fault of the netminders, Blair and
Windsor stood in as teams ran up the score on the 67’s many nights, causing
them to finish last in the league with 323 goals against in their 68 matchups.
A second firesale came ahead of the January trade deadline,
with many of Ottawa’s top scorers and their top defender finding new homes. Tyler Graovac went to Belleville, Remy
Giftopoulos went to Windsor and Cody Ceci and Steven Janes went to Owen Sound.
In their place came a number of new bodies that made up a
new-look 67’s squad. Gritty forwards
Mark Petaccio and John Urbanic came over from the Greyhounds and Generals
respectively, one-shot scorer Sergey Kuptsov joined the team from Belleville, and
top rookie defender Jake Middleton came over with first-line forward Joseph
Blandisi from Owen Sound.
Urbanic and Petaccio epitomized what the post-deadline
Barberpoles were; gritty. But while the team
that was iced for the first half of the season managed to stay competitive
through losses and keep games close, there were nights where other teams simply
outclassed the 67’s talent-wise and handed them some embarrassing losses.
Without Ceci logging 25 minutes of ice time per night, and
with a lot of depth scoring traded away, the blowouts poured in; a 10-6 loss
against Peterborough, a 10-1 drubbing at the hands of the Barrie Colts, and a
pair of matchups with the league-leading London Knights that saw Ottawa lose
the season series by an aggregate score of 21-6. In a game against Brampton, they didn’t
register a shot until nearly 25 minutes in.
Quickly, the focus shifted away from any slim playoff hopes
and instead on drafting. At the OHL
draft, who would the 67’s take to make up for this tough season? And at the NHL draft, would Sean Monahan’s stock
drop because of his team’s poor performance?
Both questions have yet to be answered but Monahan did his
best to silence any critics. The
captain fought through a tough back injury to play a game against
Belleville and score two goals in the process.
He had 11 shots on goal and Ottawa’s lone tally the day he dropped to
eighth on International Scouting Service’s 2013 NHL draft rankings. And he tied his career high with 78 points,
despite missing 10 games to suspension.
Around Monahan, however, the team continued to falter. Meanwhile, the Petes went on an amazing run
that saw them miss the playoffs by one point, leaving Ottawa an insurmountable
deficit at the bottom of the Eastern Conference.
The 67’s didn’t need to tank to get a high draft pick, but
with only one win in their last 15 games, playoffs were mathematically crossed
out in February and the first overall pick was clinched a week before the end
of the season.
What went wrong for the 67’s in their first year in
Kanata? A little bit of everything. What can be done to ensure that this type of
disastrous season doesn’t happen again?
That will be up to Byrne and his staff when a number of decisions have
to be made as trades and draftees could further change the outlook of the
roster.
For now, we’re left watching 16 other OHL teams do battle in
the playoffs. But if it’s any solace to Ottawa
fans, last time the team was in this situation, they came back to go on a
17-year playoff streak, winning the Memorial Cup on home ice four seasons
later.
With the Nation’s Capital being an early favourite to host
the 2017 CHL championship tournament, history could repeat itself.
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