3:10

That's all it took for Brampton to erase a 3-goal deficit in the third period, keep the momentum and eventually win the game 5 -4.

Ottawa came out strong, and pretty much owned the second period but as soon as the third period started I thought to myself "oh-oh they are slacking off and are going to pay for it." And pay they did. In the first 5 minutes of the third period, they only got out of their own zone twice - although one of those ventures resulted in Thomas Kiriakou's second goal of the game, Ottawa's 4th goal of the game on the first shot of the third frame to go up 4 - 1. Pieter Schinkelshoek got the lone assist.

I've already given away the ending (I always read the last page of a book right away) but stay with me for the rest of the story.

Forward combos (sort of - everything changed once Nesbitt was injured):
Cowick, Couture, Nesbitt (to start - cameos after the injury)
Martindale, Latta, Toffoli
Lindsay, Kiriakou, Carnevale
Blunden, Anderson, Schinkelshoek

D-Pairs:
Paryzek, Cuma
Demers, Zanetti
Hartwick, Hanes

Goal: Perugini

Scratches: Ryan (injured), Sonnenburg, Birkhoff (sick), Stein (previous call-up)

The game started promising enough with Ottawa getting on the board first less that two minutes into the game on Ryan Hanes' shot from the point that Tyler Toffoli redirected past local boy Patrick Killeen for his 6th goal of the season. It was Ottawa's first shot on goal. But it didn't take long for Brampton to get it back. On their 4th shot of the game, rookie Kyle Pereira scored his first goal of the season. Assists went to Matt Duchene and point machine Evgeny Grachev.

The period remained scoreless despite several scoring chances and two power plays for the 67s. The PK by Brampton was outstanding. Ottawa might have had two shots on goal for the two PPs combined.

And there must have been some bad blood from the game on Sunday. Just before the halfway mark, Michael Latta and Stephon Thorne travelled from center ice down to the Brampton net whaling away at each other.


Then with just under 6 minutes left Marc Zanetti and Kyle Pereira (who previously turtled on Jon Carnevale) went at it.

I don't recall a 67s team in recent memory being so scrappy.

The Battalin are a fast, skilled team but the 67s outplayed them in the second frame. Latta had a good short-handed chance early in the period, the team broke up scoring chances, and skated hard. And it finally paid off with the go-ahead goal with 7:34 left to play. It was Thomas Kiriakou's 12th goal of the season putting it over the shoulder of Killeen. Jon Carnevale and Cody Lindsay assisted.

At some point in the whole proceedings (I didn't notice exactly when) Thomas Nesbitt got injured and wasn't taking anymore shifts. Killer was juggling his forwards and line combos were changing frequently it seemed. I didn't try to keep track.

Finally, on their 5th PP of the game, with Craig Moore out for delay of game (puck over the glass), Ryan Martindale scored to put the 67s up by two. Jon Carnevale and Julien Demers were credited with the assists.

So they went into the locker room up by two having just played an outstanding middle frame. They should have felt that beating this team was possible.

Well, perhaps too much. Brampton won the face off and kept Ottawa pinned in their end. The 67s seemed to be lost - unable to muster the jump and energy from the previous two periods. As mentioned in the opening, Kiriakou put the 67s up by three early in the period but the team just sat back after that and true to their name, the Battalion battled back.

In very short order, 3:10 to be precise, Brampton's Derek Gregorack (first goal of the season), Jason Dale, and Cody Hodgson scored. It started with Derek's goal from the blue line that Chris Perugini should have had. And it appeared that it rattled the team. Assisting on that flurry of goals were Kyle DeCoste, Ken Peroff, Jason Dale, Matt Duchene and Evgeny Gacheve. Yup - pretty much the point machines for Brampton.

The 67s did manage to step it up in the last half of the game but someone forgot about minding the opposition and Josh Shalla was left all alone in front of Perugini to score the game winning goal. Jason Dale and Thomas Stajan had the assists. Less than 5 minutes remained. Ottawa was unable to gain puck possession in the final minute to allow Perugini to leave the ice for the extra attacker.

And so it ended with the Battalion fighting back from a 3-goal deficit with 4 unanswered goals to win their franchise-record setting 15th game in a row and showing why their are among the country's top 10 teams.

Three Stars as selected by the Team1200

Hardest Working 67s as selected by the Team1200: Jon Carnevale

Random Thoughts:

• In the battle of the specialty teams (Brampton with a pretty solid PK and Ottawa tops in the PP department) I would have to give the game to the Battalion. Their PK (and it's really good) kept Ottawa to 1 goal in 5 tries. And not too many shots on goal in those five tries.
  
• I imagine this one will eat at them for a while. They should have won this game. Guess they will remember that the game is 60 minutes.
  
• To give credit though, their last 4 games have been against the two top teams in the conference. Those teams are pretty loaded with talent when compared to this relatively young 67s club (that is loaded with rookies). They have shown that they can compete with the best. They will learn from this game and it will serve to make them stronger.
  
• Hockey legend Scotty Bowman was in the house tonight to celebrate 50 years since the Hull-Ottawa Canadians won the Memorial Cup. Scotty was an assistant coach for the team. Here he is being interviewed by CTV's Terry Marcotte
  
  
• 9000 fans tonight. Brampton is lucky to get 2000. It must feel good to win in front of a lot of people even if it's not in your own rink Imagine being one of the best teams in the country and not being able to fill your own bunker (as they call it).
  

No game today (perhaps an energetic practice?) and then down the 401 tomorrow to take on the Oshawa Generals who are breathing down the 67s neck for third spot in the conference. They too are resting after a shoot-out loss on home ice last night. With a For Sale sign on his back expect John Tavares to play every game like it's his last one in Oshawa. Ottawa will have to seriously regroup after last night's big disappointment.

Set up for Brampton

Both teams come into the game with something to prove. A depleted and tired Ottawa team lost in Brampton lost 4 - 2 in Brampton last Sunday but they gave it all they had. Fresh and on home ice they will be looking to end the 14-game winning streak of the CHL 7th ranked team in the country. No word on Tyler Cuma and whether he will be joining Logan Couture in Guelph tonight for the ADT Canada-Russia series (which is now tied at one game each).

Brampton is bearing down on top spot in the East just three points behind Belleville and are moving up the rankings in the CHL chart. They will be looking to extend their winning ways. Forwards Matt Duchene and Cody Hodgson have been tapped for tonight's ADT game.

Ottawa 67s	Head to Head	Brampton Battalion
12-10-0-2	Record	16-6-0-0
26	Points	32
3rd - East	Conference – Rank	2nd - East
81	GF	81
74	GA	62
4-4-0-2	P10	10-0-0-0
21.6 - 1st	PP% (rank)	15.5 - 17th
85.8 - 4th	PK% (rank)	87.3 - 2nd

Top Guns - Ottawa

Player	Postion	G/A/PTS
Cowick	LW	17-5-22
Kiriakou	C	11-10-21
Latta	C	8-12-20
Toffoli	RW	5-14-19
Martindale	LW	7-11-18

Top Guns - Brampton

Player	Postion	G/A/PTS
Duchene	C	12-19-31
Hodgson	C	14-13-27
Grachev	LW	12-9-21
Dale	RW	8-6-14
Tanski	C	4-9-13

See you Friday!

No Pictures on the Game Sheet...

…and the 67s should be thankful for that. It wasn't pretty for the most part.

Both teams were missing key players for the game. Out of the lineup for Ottawa were Tyler Cuma, Julien Demers, and Logan Couture who remained at their NHL camps. Adam Courchaine was out with a groin injury and Adam Zamec served the second game in his six game suspension.

Chris Perugini was in net

I didn’t get all the scratches for Brampton but they were missing John Hughes and Cory Hodgson who remain at their NHL camps (Columbus and Vancouver respectively).
Patrick Killen (recently returned from the Penguins camp) was in net for the Battalion.

You can read a game sheet as well as I can so here it is.

This is what the game sheet won’t tell you.

Ottawa was SERIOUSLY outplayed in the first two periods. Both teams seemed disconnected for the start of the game and Ottawa’s goal in just 10 seconds was the result of an intercepted pass by Martindale and digging at the goal-mouth by Thomas Kiriakou. Corey Cowick and Yakov Vorobyov got the assists. The Battalion came right back and appeared to have tied up the game 20 seconds later but it was called back because the player gloved the puck in. Stan Butler was some annoyed. That man will have serious health issues if he tries to keep up that amount of indignation throughout the season.

Brampton slowly started getting its collective act together and eventually took over the play. The 67s did a good job defending on the first PK of the game, limiting the Battalion to one shot, but that was about all the good they were able to muster as a team.

There were a couple of bright moments including Martindale catching Toffoli behind the Battalion defender while on a PK but Tyler was offside and the play was called.

Ken Peroff was credited with tying the game at 7:06 with a wrist shot from inside the blue line that deflected off someone to get past Chris.

On their first PP of the season (Corey Cowick was hauled down) the 67s weren’t able to generate a shot on Killeen.

The second period was pretty much like the first except that the Battalion didn’t need any time to warm up. But, like the first period, the 67s were first to score with a nice wrist shot from that Michael Latta put top shelf on Killeen just 1:20 into the game. Brian Birkhoff got the assist. This was Ottawa’s 5th shot of the game I think. Not looking too good for Penguins prospect Killeen. Bt then, he could have been asleep for all the action he had seen to that point.

For his part, Chris Perugini made a few saves to keep his team in the game. And the goalpost helped out a couple of times.

With Brian Birkhoff off for kneeing, the Battalion had a good powerplay but it had already ended when Jason Dale tied it up once again. It looked like it was just tipped in.

Brampton continued to carry the play but were unable to get the go-ahead goal.
Then, just at the end of the period, it all changed.

The teams were playing 4-on-4 when Brampton’s Matt Duchene was called for holding Martindale (I think). The announcers thought it odd how the call was made since Matt had possession of the puck but the ref saw it otherwise. With only 28 seconds in the period, Michael Latta scored his second of the night, another wrister that went top shelf but this on the other side of Killeen. Martindale and Toffoli got the assists. And to close out the period, just as time ran out, Corey Cowick made it 4 – 2 with help from Sean Ryan and Thomas Kiriakou.

Ottawa had been pretty much outplayed for 40 minutes, managed 12 shots on goal and were up 4 – 2. Go figure.

And that pretty much did Brampton in. It was complete role reversal in the third period with Ottawa carrying the play and Brampton on their heels for the most part. Brandon Foote replaced Patrick Killeen and turned aside all 15 shots that Ottawa had.

So, for the 4th time in as many years, Brampton dropped its home opener and for the second year in a row, it was Ottawa doing the dropping despite having been outplayed for the most part.

Three stars of the game according to the game sheet:
1 – Michael Latta
2 – Matt Duchene
3 – Chris Perugini

According to Team1200:
1 – Michael Latta
2 – Corey Cowick
3 – Matt Duchene

Hardest working 67s: Thomas Kiriakou

Closing thoughts:

• The “Bunker” looked pretty empty for a home opener on a Friday night. I think the 67s had more fans out for the season ticket pick-up on Monday.
  
• season firsts: penalty – Cody Lindsay; goal – Kiriakou; point as a 67s: Cowick, Toffoli, Vorobyov; Birkhoff; win – Perugini;
  
• Toffoli had a couple of chances for short-handed goals. He got behind the defenseman twice and in one case had the shot on goal. he's going to be dangerous.
  
• Chris was taken out when Duchene (I think) crashed the net going for a late goal. He finished the final seconds of the game. I hope it was minor contact.
  
• the young team got the job done. Good to get the win on the road.
  

The team plays Niagara next but it’s unlikely that I will catch the game.

See you at the home opener on Friday!!