Advertisement

Ottawa 67's leave Niagara IceDogs heading home in 2-0 hole: OHL post-game questions

Nevin Guy had 5 points for the 67's in their 8-2 win over Niagara (Terry Wilson, OHL Images)
Nevin Guy had 5 points for the 67's in their 8-2 win over Niagara (Terry Wilson, OHL Images)

Both of Saturday's games had the same 8-2 scorelines as Ottawa and Sault Ste. Marie took 2-0 series leads, but that's where the similarities ended. On with the post-game questions:

Eastern Conference

Ottawa 8 Niagara 2 (67's lead 2-0, IceDogs host Game 3 on Monday) — How much are the 67's braced for a different Niagara team on Monday? Following the matinee mauling at TD Place, 67's coach Jeff Brown was quick to seize on the fact the 'Dogs ended up with 24-20 edge on the shot counter. His team, which had seven goal scorers after having six in the opener (Dante Salituro had a double again, while defendder Nevin Guy had five points), has scarcely missed a scoring chance so far. But they are shifting to St. Catharines, where the IceDogs are 16-1-2-0 since the calendar flipped to 2015.

"I don't want to take anything away from our guys, they scored some nice goals, but at the same time [Niagara] outshot us today," Brown said. "This series is a long way from being over. We've got to learn from what was good, learn from what is bad

"We've scored they haven't, it's not one-sided, it's not like we're outshooting them by 30. We've got to bear down and be better. We've scored some goals but we don't have a lot to be real excited about in our game as far as shots and stuff like that."

Niagara had two bad breaks during a scoreless first period — a pinged post and a disallowed goal after Mikkel Aagaard was ruled to have pushed goalie Liam Herbst's pad and the puck into the net with his foot. It's grasping at straws to say a 1-0 lead after 20 instead of double zeroes might have changed the contest's course seeing how that after Niagara scored first, it gave up five goals over the next 8½ minutes.

Icedogs offensive aces Josh Ho-Sang, Brendan Perlini and Carter Verhaeghe combined for five points (two even-strength) and minus-14 in the two games.

How off were the IceDogs? You almost had to be there. Niagara, which averaged just a shade fewer than four goals a night in the regular season, but whose stronger age bracket is its 18-year-olds (Perlini, Ho-Sang, defencemen Vince Dunn and Blake Siebenaler goalie Brent Moran, et al.) struggled in transition offence and defence. On Ottawa's go-ahead goal in the second period, Dunn, one of the OHL's top defenceman scorers, was 30 feet behind Travis Konency when the captain took a lead pass for a 2-on-1 opportunity.

The denouement was furnished by Ottawa's 18-year-old checking winger Trent Mallette, who was tracking Ho-Sang for much of Saturday's game. The 5-foot-9, 180-pound Mallette raised the IceDogs' ire late in the second after injuring 6-4, 200-pound defender Aaron Haydon with a shoulder-to-shouder check 4-5 feet out from the boards. When Mallette finished serving the boarding penalty he was assessed and crossed the ice to get to the 67's bench, he shoved Dunn as both tried to change. That kind of gamesmanship is routine (even though it's dangerous, since Peterborough's Dominik Masin suffered a season-ending injury on such a play), but Dunn started fighting.

"I just got out of the box and I hit Dunn," Mallette said. "I've been on him all series so far. It's all for the fun of it and it's playoffs, so I guess it is getting under their skin."

IceDogs coach-GM Marty Williamson gambled with a goalie switch, turning to Moran. The Dallas Stars selection got a mercy pull after five goals on 10 shots. Ottawa has 16 on 50 shots in the series.

To reiterate, Niagara really isn't in trouble until it loses a game at home.

Western Conference

Sault Ste. Marie 8 Saginaw 2 (Greyhounds lead 2-0, Spirit host Game 3 on Tuesday) — What is the tell-a-lot that the 'Hounds were probably a little sharper than 24 hours earlier? The Soo was plus-3 in power-play differential (finishing 5-for-8 to Saginaw's 1-for-5) after being minus-3 in the opener. This was a good, and thorough win, with the 'Hounds levelling 52 shots on rookie goalie Evan Cormier. Nick Ritchie had a team-high four points.

"We took the play to them," Soo captain Darnell Nurse, the Edmonton Oilers first-rounder, told the Sault Star. "Those were good signs of what we’re capable of."

Neate Sager is a writer for Yahoo! Canada Sports. Follow him on Twitter @neatebuzzthenet.