Ottawa 67’s Cap Undefeated Week With Convincing Win Over Second-Place IceDogs

Photo credit: Ottawa 67's

Michael DiPietro helped lead the 67’s to another undefeated week, winning all three of his starts. With the three wins, Ottawa current win streak now sits at eight.

The week’s schedule finished with a matchup between the top two teams in the Eastern Conference. Ottawa did not disappoint in the heavy weight battle with the Niagara IceDogs.

Sasha Chmelevski and Tye Felhaber scored two apiece in the opening two periods to give the 67’s a commanding lead in what needed up being a 6-1 Ottawa victory.

After Chmelevski’s opening goal, Niagara struck back with a goal from Jack Studnicka on the power play early on in the second period. However, the 67’s ended the second frame with three unanswered goals to establish a comfortable lead heading into the third.

Kyle Maksimovich scored a short-handed mark in the third period and the 67’s rolled from there to finish the game. With the victory over Niagara, Ottawa extended its first-place lead in the Eastern Conference to nine points above the second-place IceDogs.

The 67’s opened the week with a Wednesday night beat down of the Kingston Frontenacs. Chmelevski scored a hat trick in the 7-1 blowout win. The American-born forward scored five goals over the three games this week.

Naturally, the seven team goals helped a few 67’s fill up the stat sheet against Kingston. Marco Rossi scored two goals, defenseman Nikita Okhotyuk totaled three assists and Austen Keating contributed a goal and an assist himself.

Ottawa outshot the Frontenacs by 18 and kept them out of the net on all five of their power play chances to help the 67’s start the week on an exceptionally positive note.

Friday’s win over Guelph was a rather different story however. It took Ottawa 64 minutes to finally put the Storm away for good. Maksimovich scored the game winner in overtime. It was a ‘no doubt’ slap shot on the power play from him that sent the 67’s home happy.

It was Maksimovich’s 28^th goal of the season and his fifth already in his short time so far since his trade to Ottawa.

Guelph forward Keegan Stevenson scored back-to-back goals in the game to give the Storm a brief 2-1 lead in the second period. When Guelph fell behind by one in the third period, Nick Suzuki came through with a beauty of a wrist shot to send the game to overtime.

While he didn’t score, Felhaber picked up two assists for the second consecutive game. In fact, he notched at least two points in all three games last week.

With power play goals from Noel Hoefenmayer and Maksimovich, the 67’s went 2/3 on the man advantage against the Storm. It was a fantastic week for the Ottawa power play unit in general. Over the three games, they went 7/14 on the power play.

The 67’s will take to the road for three games in three days this week. They will begin in Peterborough to take on the Petes (Thursday), before matching up with the Mississauga Steelheads (Friday) and Hamilton Bulldogs (Saturday).