Mitchell Vande Sompel was on a mission. His goal and 4 assists led the Oshawa Generals to a 5-2 victory over the Ottawa 67's Tuesday night in the nation's capital.
Tallying a point in 4 of the 5 Generals' goals, the 16-year old showed exactly why he was named to Team Ontario's U17 roster. Vande Sompel will join Travis Konecny in Nova Scotia later this month.
The score isn't fair indication on the full game story. The 67's started out strong but started to get into some penalty trouble in the second half of the game. In the past three games, the 67's have given the Generals 19 powerplays.
"Oshawa plays hard, they antagonize well, they are obviously a good hockey team, there's a reason they are in first place," said Chris Byrne.
While the 67's allowed 5 goals on 14 powerplay chances, the 67's only allowed 1/5 tonight. The 67's showed some great work on the final penalty kill which lead to two shorthanded breaks including one where Brendan Bell had three consecutive opportunities to cut the lead in half. Standing all alone in front of the net, Daniel Altshuller made three huge saves before the puck was finally blown dead.
Altshuller came up big more than once tonight. While Philippe Trudeau played well in his 18th consecutive start, the Generals simply jumped on their chances and the 67's had no finish. When asked if the Trudeau is starting to show some wear and tear, Chris Byrne was quick to say, "No."
It appeared that the 67's would have a much better fate after Dante Salituro opened the scoring at the 1:15 mark of the first period. Failed defensive coverage by the Generals along with a big rebound by Altshuller allowed Salituro to skate right up and knock the puck into the Oshawa net.
The Generals quickly woke up and tightened up their defence to match the 67's. It wasn't until the 14:08 minute mark until the Generals got on the board. A lead pass after a quick line change off the faceoff created a Michael Dal Colle breakaway. Dal Colle lifted the puck over the shoulder of Trudeau and in to tie the game at 1.
Scoring opened up in the second where the Generals scored 3 goals on 11 shots. Vande Sompel beat Trudeau point blank on the powerplay, Bradley Latour scored on a rebound and Josh Sterk snuck past two 67's defenders and notched in his 13th goal of the season extending his current point streak to 5 games. A couple costly mistakes cost the 67's a 4-1 second period deficit.
It's never a dull moment between these two long time arch rivals. Tempers started to flair midway through the third with Brett Gustavsen taking most of the abuse, first from a Scott Laughton headlock and next with a Will Petschenig sucker punch. No injuries and play continued with the 67's on the powerplay.
Latour would put a dagger in the 67's side scoring a shorthanded breakaway goal to give the Generals a 5-1 lead. That was his second of the game and 13th of the season. The 67's would get one back 40 seconds later on the same powerplay. Travis Konecny scored his 11th of the season after completely undressing Stephen Desrocher on the short side.
The 67's dropped their 3rd straight game and still sit 2 points back of 7th place now with only 1 game in hand on Peterborough. They will have another stab at it when the Belleville Bulls visit on Friday night.
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