Dec. 14/24 vs Ottawa: Highlights & Recap
The 67’s made their way to Barrie on Saturday to face off against the Colts for the second time this week. Barrie bested Ottawa 5-3 in October and beat them again on Sunday 2-1, both previous meetings took place in Ottawa, making this Barrie’s first homestand against the 67’s. The Colts have kept their foot on the gas as of late, carrying over their success from November into December by winning 3 of 4 to open the month. These teams found themselves at opposite ends of the Eastern Conference heading into this matchup, Barrie remained atop the conference while Ottawa sat second from the bottom, only ahead of the league-worst Peterborough Petes.
The Colts were first on the board thanks to second-year centreman Jaiden Newton, who found twine for the first time this season on a breakaway three minutes into the game. Both teams traded chances until the 67’s broke through and tied the game at 1. Ottawa outshot Barrie 15-9 in the opening frame, uncharacteristic of a Colts team that has typically found themselves on the right side of the shot battle so far this season. Barrie goaltender Sam Hillebrandt kept his team in this game as it headed into the second, stopping 14 of Ottawa’s 15 shot attempts. This will be Sam’s last game with the Colts before he joins Team USA for this year’s World Junior Championship.
Offensive momentum ground to a standstill for Barrie in the early goings of the second. The first half of the period saw the Colts muster just 1 shot attempt and no goals. Amidst Barrie’s cold start to the middle frame, Ottawa took advantage and gave themselves a 2-1 lead 5 minutes in. The 67’s remained the aggressors for the entirety of the period scoring again just before the 3-minute mark, and then again minutes later. When all was said and done, the visiting 67’s would carry a 4-1 lead into the second intermission.
Barrie Centerman Dalyn Wakely was first on the board in the third. Wakely’s 4-2 goal gave life to the crowd and seemingly energized the Colts as they were visually more engaged in this period in contrast to each of the 1st and 2nd frames. The score remained 4-2 into the final minutes of the period when Bode Stewart scored to bring Barrie within 1, sending the crowd into a frenzy. The Colts wasted no time completing the comeback as Carter Lowe scored the tying goal a minute after Stewart’s goal, pushing this game to overtime in a 4-4 tie. Overtime solved nothing and it would take a shootout to solve this one. In the shootout, the 67’s would prevail as Barrie failed to score on all three of their attempts and it took just 1 Ottawa shootout goal to seal the win for them.
Barrie took the first lead in this one, but it didn’t take long for this to turn into a statement game for Ottawa as they end up going on the road to take down one of the league’s best teams by a large margin. For the Colts, it’s evident that they are missing key contributions on the ice from the likes of Cole Beaudoin and Beau Akey, who are both away from the team after being selected to represent Canada at this year’s World Juniors. The reality for Barrie is that they are going to have to find a way to stay in the win collum without even more of their top players as they inevitably will lose both Emil Hemming (Finland) and Sam Hillebrandt (USA) to their respective national teams in the near future.
