Ottawa 67's fall flat in frustrating home opener

Selfish players were to blame for the 67’s 4-0 loss against the Barrie Colts in Ottawa’s home opener, according to head coach Jeff Brown.

Steelheads stun 67’s 7-0 in Mississauga’s home opener

Outplayed, outclassed, outscored. The Ottawa 67’s dropped a 7-0 decision to the Mississauga Steelheads at the Hershey Centre on Friday night. Recently acquired goaltender Jake Flinn pitched a 27-save shutout to lead his team to victory.

67's fall 5-4 to the Petes in season opener

Fresh off a training camp stint with the NHL’s Philadelphia Flyers, Travis Konecny came back to the Ottawa 67’s on fire. Konecny scored a pair of goals for the 67’s but it wasn’t enough as they lost 5-4 to the Peterborough Petes in regulation.

67's kickoff their 49th season tonight

The days are getting shorter and the nights are getting cooler, which means hockey season is right around the corner. After a long training camp that started in late August, the Ottawa 67’s finally kick off their 49th regular season tonight in Peterborough.

   

The 67’s finished their preseason with an underwhelming record of 1-1-0-1. While the record was less than stellar, it was a great learning experience for their prospects. With 7 players in NHL camps, the 67’s brass was able to evaluate the depth of the team.

“I’m really proud of the 7 of our guys that represented the Ottawa 67’s. That’s what we preach all the time, respect and not just on the ice, but off the ice,” said head coach Jeff Brown. “All the GMs called me and reported back they said nothing but good things about the character of our players.”

Six of the seven players represented have since been returned to the 67’s including Connor Graham (NYI), Liam Herbst (STL), Jake Middleton (LAK), Jeremiah Addison (MTL), Sam Studnicka (MTL), & most recently announced – 67’s captain Travis Konecny (PHI).

“(Konecny) went to Philadelphia wanting to make that team this year. I know he’s disappointed but he’s going to have a great year here. It will be a good spot for him to develop,” said Brown.

The lone player left at NHL camp is Dante Salituro with the Columbus Blue Jackets. The Blue Jackets invited Salituro to their development camp as a free agent following the NHL Draft this past June. They were so impressed with him that they invited him to their rookie camp a couple months later. Now Salituro has survived the first cuts of Blue Jackets main camp. However, he has yet to see any preseason action.

Who’s gone?

A couple familiar faces you won’t see this season are the two OA graduates – Brendan Bell, Curtis Meighan (now playing for Carleton U). The 67’s also lose Alex Lintuniemi who will continue in the LA Kings prospects system. The blue line takes a hit with the loss of Lintuniemi, but it takes an even bigger hit in experience with the loss of veterans Mike Vlajkov, Taylor Davis and Zach Pittman.

Who’s new?

The 67’s have not announced their official starting roster yet, but you can be sure to see first round pick Austen Keating staying up with the team. Joining the forwards are Nolan Gardiner, Connor Warnholtz, and Artur Tyanulin. Warnholtz, who has not been drafted in the OHL, signed on as a free agent earlier this month. Tyanulin who was sent home last season, returns to the 67’s and takes up one of the two European spots.

Taking the second and last European spot is the towering defenseman Stephan Falkovsky who the 67’s selected in the first round of the Import draft this season. Four more fresh faces added to the blue line are Noel Hoefenmayer, William Brown, Hudson Wilson, and Ryan Barbosa. The 67’s will be in tough and these rookies will lean heavily on returning veterans Jake Middleton and Evan de Haan.

How they stack up?

Forwards

Despite still being at NHL camp, the 67’s expect to see 2014-15 team leading scorer, Dante Salituro back with the team. Salituro combined with the return of elite prospect, Travis Konecny, gives the 67’s some immediate offense on two different lines.

“We really like the way our forwards shape up, we’re only losing two guys up front and replacing them with basically a first rounder and a couple other ‘98s that we feel are ready to make the step,” said Jeff Brown.

The depth of the forward group is pretty strong with the return of Jeremiah Addison and Sam Studnicka who are both fresh off Montreal Canadiens camp and Nathan Todd who took it up three notches down the stretch last season.

Expect to see a good year from Travis Barron who enters his draft year and Trent Mallette who really became comfortable as the season wore on. The depth of the 67’s forwards, should give rookies like Austen Keating a good first year experience.

Defensemen

The blue line is the main concern with the loss of a couple key defensemen. The 67’s will look to Jake Middleton, Evan de Haan and Nevin Guy for leadership and to log a lot of ice time.

Middleton returns from LA Kings camp with a whole new perspective and his coach has nothing but positives to say about him.

“He can do it all back there and we expect him to take another step. He was solid for us last year but we need him to be a 30-minute guy this year that’s going to play in all situations,” Brown told Josh Sweetland of the OHL.

Goalies

It is believed that the starting goalie position is Liam Herbst’s to lose but Jeff Brown may not feel that way.

“We’re very fortunate; we have two # 1 goalies. I’m comfortable with either one of them,” he said. “Last year when Herbst was out, for about 6 weeks, (Leo Lazarev) took the ball and ran with it. His numbers during that stretch were exceptional.”

Lazarev went 6-2 during that stretch and a goals against average of 2.33 and a save percentage of 0.926.

After a long history of injuries, Herbst will hope to stay healthy this season to be able to fight for that #1 role.

The 67’s have the chance to contend for the East for the first time in three or four years. They will have some tough competition with teams like Niagara, Barrie and Mississauga stacking up strong teams of their own.

“We need the guys to continue to buy in and play for one another as a team and hopefully we’ll be in that discussion (of a contending team),” said Brown.

The 67’s open the regular season with a quick road trip in Peterborough tonight and in Mississauga tomorrow night before the home opener on Sunday afternoon against Barrie.

OSEG announces new Ottawa 67’s Prospects Program

From breaking attendance records in the early 2000s to falling to league average over a decade later, it’s no secret the Ottawa 67’s have faced attendance problems in the last few year.

Today team co-Owner and President, Jeff Hunt announced a new bold initiative to re-attract fans. The initiative brought forward this season is the Ottawa 67’s Prospects Program.

 

 

 

Barbosa Caps Strong Pre-Season, Makes His Case For Opening Night

The forward position is the one with the most bodies, but it might be the one with the least competition, the one on Ottawa's blueline looking increasingly more interesting.

98-born defender Ryan Barbosa is doing everything in his power to make the decision to keep him an easier one on Jeff Brown.

Barbosa logged considerable minutes in the Barberpoles loss to Gatineau to start the preseason and added a powerplay marker in Kingston in the 67's pre-season closer.

For a team that, on paper, is very weak on defence, an overachieving rookie could be what's desperately needed.

• Liam Herbst saw his first preseason action on Saturday, turning aside 35 shots.  He may have to do that a lot this year.
• When the Junior A Wellington Dukes open their season on Tuesday, it's expected that they'll be with Olivier Lafreniere.  He may be OHL ready, but there are too many goalies on the trade market right now for the 67's to trade Herbst or Leo Lazarev in order to make room for him.  
• If the 67's can swing a deal involving Lazarev with a defenceman coming back the other way, it might be in their best interest.
• Elsewhere in Junior A, ex-67 Taylor Davis, generally a stay-at-home defender, had a hattrick for the Pictou County Weeks Crushers last night. 
• As far as former Ottawa d-men go, no word yet where Mike Vlajkov will be this year.

The 67's open their season on Thursday in Peterborough.

67's drop second straight exhibition game

After a two week hiatus, the Ottawa 67’s were back on the ice at TD Place tonight. Unfortunately, it was apparent they haven’t had real game action for at least two weeks.

The 67’s forced overtime late in the game, but fell 5-4 to the Kingston Frontenacs in the shootout. They now sit with a pre-season record of 0-1-0-1 with the final pre-season game scheduled in Kingston on Saturday night.

67's fall 5-2 to the Gatineau Olympiques in exhibition play

After an early exit from the 2015 OHL playoffs, the Ottawa 67’s experienced another long off-season. Almost 5 months to the day, the 67’s finally returned to the ice to face the cross-river rival Gatineau Olympiques for their first exhibition game of the new season.

The Olympiques ruined the 67’s home coming with a 5-2 win in front of a sparse crowd of 1,612 on a warm Friday night.

As one may expect, the 67’s looked rusty coming out of the gate and continued to struggle in many parts of the game. 

“It was a learning experience for a lot of the young guys to see what it’s like. I’m not going to read too much into the score. Individually, there were some good things that I liked and some disappointing things, but that’s standard,” said 67’s coach Jeff Brown.

With training camp only starting on Tuesday, the team has not had a lot of time together. To put it in perspective, the Olympiques training camp started August 10^th with their first regular season game starting in less than one week.

“We haven’t even had a practice yet. We had a morning skate this morning and that was about it. We got a lot of work to do.”

The Olympiques drew first blood off their 4^th shot on net. Rookie defenseman Hudson Wilson had a defensive lapse allowing Nashville Predators’ draft pick, Yakov Trenin to skate in at the side of a wide open net.

Midway through the first frame, Artur Tyanulin responded for the 67’s but it was Travis Konecny who did all of the work. Drafted by the Philadephia Flyers this past June, Konecny has not missed a step. He used his dynamic speed to blow past the Olympiques defender and find Tyanulin in the high slot.

Flashes of brilliance shot throughout both the 67’s and Olympiques lineup, but the 67’s were inconsistent and often looked sloppy. Sitting out of the lineup for the 67’s were veterans Jake Middleton, Evan de Haan, Nathan Todd, Nevin Guy, Jeremiah Addison and Liam Herbst. This allowed the coaching staff to see more rookies in real game action. 

The Olympiques gained a two-goal lead in the second period and the 67’s were never able to catch up. The game ended up getting away from the home team 67’s late in the final frame as the Olympiques scored very easily on two open nets. 

Yakov Trenin ended up with 2 goals and 1 assist on the night and was easily the Olympiques best player. Sam Studnicka was a physical presence tonight with 6 hits and went 11/16 on the faceoff dot. Travis Konecny created several scoring chances including one that led to a penalty shot where he just rung the puck off the crossbar.

Despite the score of the game, coach Jeff Brown thought his rookies played pretty well considering the circumstances.

“It’s hard to compete against them. They had an old line-up on the ice.” He said, “You’re talking about 20 year olds against 16 year olds, it’s a bit of an unfair fight.”

The 67’s have under 2 weeks off until their next pre-season game which gives them plenty of time to regroup and fine tune their play.

OHL game summary here.
QMJHL game summary here.