67’s Downed by Petes

By: Ottawa67s.com Staff
Photo: Robert Lefebvre – Icelevel Photography

OTTAWA – The 67’s entered unfamiliar territory after Friday’s game, coming to the realization that back-to-back home games had been lost for the first time this season, after dropping a 5-2 decision to the Peterborough Petes at TD Place.

At the outset, the 67’s didn’t appear that they’d come even close to being in that unlikely predicament. The team was in control early and stormed to an early lead on a power play marker that lifted the fans out of their seats when Dante Salituro converted a beautiful feed from Travis Konecny.

But that’s about where everything stopped going right for the 67’s, and, as coach Jeff Brown said after the game, just about everything that could go wrong did, in fact, go wrong.

Peterborough stormed back to take a lead into the intermission on an unlikely set of circumstances.

First, the 67’s took a too-many-men penalty with just under three minutes left, and the Petes capitalized on a Steven Lorentz goal that beat Leo Lazarev after changing directly twice on the initial shot from the point.

Then more bad fortune for the 67’s when Trent Mallette took a double-minor with 29 seconds remaining for an accidental high stick while making a rush in front of the Peterborough net, followed by an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty to the Ottawa bench for complaining about the call, resulting in a two-main advantage for the Petes.

Peterborough pounced. Michael Clarke scored with two seconds remaining ito give the Petes the improbable lead heading into the intermission.

Josh Macguire and Greg Petzold added goals for the Petes in the middle frame.

The 67’s made a valiant effort to get back into the game in the final period. Brendan Bell scored his 14th goal of the season and the 67’s outshot the Petes 14-1.

Technically, the 67’s didn’t even allow a shot on goal in the third, but the officials awarded a goal to Lorentz who was hooked and stripped of the puck while breaking in alone on an empty Ottawa net in the dying minutes.

The 67’s will attempt to break the slump at home against the North Bay Battalion on Sunday at TD Place. Face-off is at 2 p.m.