SECOND PERIOD SINKS BULLDOGS IN OTTAWA
OTTAWA, ONTARIO. Taking the ice for the final game before the Christmas break, the Brantford Bulldogs embarked on a big challenge, meeting the Ottawa 67’s at TD Place for the first time on the season. Sitting 2nd in the East Division and just 1 point back of the Bulldogs, Ottawa entered the afternoon looking to dislodge the Bulldogs from the top spot, while the Bulldogs looked to continue their season success against the 67’s capturing all 4 possible points thus far.
The Bulldogs added Owen Protz back to their lineup after he missed Friday’s game in Kingston with an illness, while captain Jake O’Brien was held out of action Saturday afternoon for precautionary reasons after leaving Friday night’s game. The story of the opening frame was undoubtedly Ryerson Leenders and Ryder Fetterolf with both netminders keeping their ends pristine. Leenders best handiwork came in a 3-on-1 with Thomas Vandenberg racing down the middle of the ice, taking a drop pass and hammering a shot on the Bulldogs netminder that he was able to fight off as part of his 8 saves in the period. Bulldogs best chance came on their only power-play of the opening frame, with Luca Testa right on the doorstep knocking a puck to the goal line but just couldn’t run it over with Fetterolf holding the game scoreless through 20 minutes.
The middle frame was all Ottawa, but it began in an unexpected way with the Bulldogs successfully killing off a pair of 67’s power-plays only to get to the power-play themselves and surrender a pair of shorthanded goals. First, at 7:41 a long up pass from Ryerson Leenders was knocked away by Kaleb Dietsch right to Spencer Bowes who caught the Bulldogs in a defensive change to walk in and score on the breakaway to take a 1-0 lead on his 8th of the season. That was followed 22-seconds later when a Camron Hankai zone entry attempt was knocked away, leading to a Jack Dever breakaway goal for his 6th of the season and a 2-0 lead for the 67’s with both markers shorthanded. The back-to-back goals seemed to take the air out of the Bulldogs as the 67’s continued to pile attempts at Ryerson Leenders. Just after another Ottawa power-play, their 3rd of the period and 4th of the game, expired, Nathan Amidovski walked down from the left-point to rifle in his 7th of the season through a screen for a 3-0 Ottawa lead. Before the frame was out the hosts added one more with Jack Dever springing Shaan Kingwell on the left-wing side for a shot from the top of the left-circle that eluded Ryerson Leenders for his 9th of the season and a 4-0 Ottawa lead at 18:05 they took into the third period.
The 67’s added to the lead just 16-seconds into the final frame with Nic Whitehead finding Filip Ekberg out front of Leenders goal all alone for his 10th of the season to make it 5-0 Ottawa. Jaxon Williams added his 1st in the OHL at 8:09 to make it 6-0 which is where the scoreline would stay with Ryder Fetterolf recording 19 saves for the shutout victory.
The Brantford Bulldogs close the pre-Christmas portion of the schedule with 23-5-4-1 record, the team’s best entering a Christmas break. The Bulldogs return to action on Sunday, December 28th when they travel to Owen Sound for their only visit of the season to meet the Attack for a 2:00pm puck drop.
