Toffoli makes up for lost time
The 67’s Tyler Toffoli attempts to find his way around the Attack’s Jesse Blacker on Sunday afternoon.
The 67’s Tyler Toffoli attempts to find his way around the Attack’s Jesse Blacker on Sunday afternoon.
Photograph by: Chris Mikula, Ottawa Citizen, Ottawa Citizen
Tyler Toffoli does his best talking with his actions, not his mouth, and from this point on he’s going make sure he sticks to that credo.
The Ontario Hockey League’s leading scorer promises.
The usually mild-mannered Toffoli got tagged with the first misconduct “of my life” late in the opening period and had to stew in the penalty box for a total 12 minutes 36 seconds of elapsed playing time in what he said seemed almost like a life sentence.
Once he was a free man again, however, Toffoli went right back to what he does best, single-handedly erasing a two-goal deficit in his first 5:01 of freedom on his way to his third hat trick of the season. Toffoli’s offence helped the Ottawa 67’s bounce the explosive Owen Sound Attack in a statement game before 5,347 at the Rona Centre on Sunday afternoon.
All Toffoli did was question the officials after linemate Shane Prince was pulled down in front of the Owen Sound goal. The Attack (25-13-2) then went the other way and scored the game’s opening goal at 15:39.
That got Toffoli the hands on the hips from the referee, which is never a good sign.
Head coach Chris Byrne didn’t like the non-call any better than his superstar did, and he got tagged with a bench minor for unsportsmanlike conduct with a threat of being tossed.
Afterward, both were apologetic, although not without an argument for the defence.
“It’s a terrible feeling,” said Toffoli, now with 38 goals in 41 games on the season to surpass his total of 37 from last year. “It looked like their guy hauled down (Prince) and I got a little upset, and the ref kind of said, ‘One more word …’ and I stopped talking. And he still gave it to me.
“It felt like forever. The play stopped with one second to go (in the misconduct) and I tried to get our guys to get a whistle, but play kept going. It was terrible.
“Next time I’m going to control myself.”
Byrne, on the other hand, wasn’t blaming Toffoli for speaking up. He was blaming himself for saying anything at all.
“The coach doesn’t need to take a minor,” Byrne said. “Tyler shouldn’t have been talking and I shouldn’t have been talking. That’s it.”
Prince also testified as a defence witness for Toffoli.
“I had an edge on their guy, and he just pulled me down by the shoulder,” Prince said. “Then they come right down and score. It was a huge momentum changer.
“That first period was tough. Then losing Tyler for 10 minutes never helps.”
Misconduct aside, the 67’s (28-11-2) were at their best from the moment Toffoli stepped from the box at 8:15 of the second period.
Both he and Prince finished with four points, while they and linemate Ryan Martindale combined for 11, including four goals and seven assists.
Toffoli was the catalyst.
He scored his first at 12:45, when Travis Gibbons fed him in the slot. Less than three minutes later,
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