Bulls and 67's Home & Home January 6th & 7th 2012

Bulls Home and Home with the 67's.

Coming in to the weekend the Belleville Bulls were desperate to turn things around as they have been loser's of 3 in a row. It wasn't going to be easy with a home and home with the East division leading Ottawa 67's. When the Bulls play Ottawa you can't help but think of The 1999 Memorial Cup and Luke Sellars elbow on Justin Papineau or "The" Lance Galbraith , Cory Looke & his back to back MVP seasons. Some of my favorites Matt Foy, Joe & Julian Talbot, Seamus Koty & the always ornery Elgin Reid, maybe its the fact that we traded Darren Pang there & now we get to watch Tyler Toffoli. In my opinion the Bulls rivalry with the 67's is their best.

Friday January 6 2012 Belleville Bulls @ Ottawa 67's.

On a Friday night in The Nation's Capital the Belleville Bulls would lean on John Chartrand for the 5th straight game, 4 of them loses, not all the loses are on John he's played really good in some of those games, it was also the 1st game for Joesph Cramarossa in a Bulls Jersey since coming over from St.Mikes earlier in the week for two 2nd Rd picks. The Bulls wouldn't have to face World Jr standout Petr Mrazek, as he was still unavailable, Michael Nishi got the start, Nishi has been good for the 67's sporting a 2.80GAA & a .940SV%.
Shane Prince (17) at 6:29 opened the scoring for the home team, a little later with Michal Cajkovsky in the box ,Tyler Toffoli started his assault on the Bulls this weekend, with a shorthanded goal, and his league leading 31st. At that point the 67's had scored on both shots they had had in the game. At 13:30 the Bulls got burned on a real bad call, we all thought that Daniil Zharkov had scored to make it 2-1, but instead Adam Payrel gets called for interference on the Goaltender, that replays show was not the right call, as he was pushed in. Any momentum the Bulls thought they had from an earlier scrap between Dylan Corson (5'10" 185lbs) & the much bigger Sean Callaghan (6'3" 200lbs), was gone as the game stayed 2-0 Ottawa. Until19:05 when Dalton Smith scored from Cody Ceci & Marc Zanetti. Not even a minute later at 19:50 Prince bagged his second of the game 18th on the year after a great effort from Toffoli to get the puck. The 1st period ends with the Bulls trailing 4-0. The Bulls killed them selves on turnovers, the goals read 1-Turnover, 2-Shorty, 3-Turnover 4-Take away/turnover. scoring chances favored Ottawa 11-3, The Bulls had 15+ turnovers by this point. Not the start they had hoped for.

Not a lot going on in the 2nd till Tyler Graovac took a interference penalty that lead to Austen Brassard netting his 20th at 17:09 on the PP, from Brendan Gaunce and the newest Bull Cramarossa. Period ends with the 67's leading 4-1. Brassard's goal extended his point streak to 9 games.

Three minutes in to the third Bulls rookie Alex Carevale fired home his 2nd of the year from Jason Shaw & Adam Bignell to give the Bulls some life and cut Ottawa's lead to 4-2, but after that it was all 67's all the time, Dalton Smith scored 2 more goals both from Toffoli & Sean Monahan, Ottawa rounded out their scoring when Ceci scored at 15:02 on the PP , again with Toffoli & Monahan drawing assists. Bulls were out shot 45-26 and out scored 7-2. The 7 goals are the most the Bulls have gave up this season. The PP - 1/3 PK-1/2. Ottawa was really rolling and gave the 5640 their moneys worth. How good were they? Monahan had 4pts and was plus 5 and wasn't one of the games 3 stars , those honours went to 1st-Smith 3G +3 his first goal was the GW, 2nd-Toffoli 1G 4A +5, 3rd- Shane Prince 2G +2


Saturday January 7, 2012 Belleville Bulls Vs Ottawa 67's

After taking a Capitol City sized 7-2 beat down in Ottawa the night before, The Belleville Bulls return home to the Yardman arena ready to use all of 200' x 100' ice surface , to welcome back GM/Coach George Burnett fresh off a Bronze Medal performance with Team Canada (Assistant Coach) at the World Jr's. Also back from a Bronze Medal win with Team Ontario at the U17 World Championships is rookie defence men Jordan Subban, Assistant GM Barclay Branch, who served as Director of Operations for Team Ontario & Equipment Manager Matt Sands. In net the 67's would allow Mrazek an other days rest, and stick with Michael Nishi. The Bulls without number 1 Maloclm Subban for what looks like a few more weeks, & with John Chartrand also not 100% , the Bulls went with rookie prospect Charlie Graham. Graham had only played 40 minutes with the Bulls so far this season, he has been plying his trade for Belleville's OJHL affiliate the Wellington Dukes, going 9-4 with one OTL, a 2.25GAA .923SV% with 1SO. Also joining Subban , Mack Lemmon, and Carter Sandlak, on the injured list was Dylon Corson and Adam Bignell both injured Friday night. So the Bulls go with 10 F and 7 D.

Out of the gate you could tell that Burnett was back, as we seen a few new line combos, he even had Daniil Zharkov & Garrett Hooey playing their off wings. The Bulls look like they responded , going to the net with the most urgency of the week. When Charlie Graham was tested he was good & hung on to keep it tied 0-0 at the end of the period. It was the best hockey played at the YardBarn in weeks.

With the Bulls favored in shots 12-6. after one period, the 2nd period could not have started better for the Bulls as Austen Brassard extended his point streak to 10 games (8G 5A) with his team leading 21st goal on the PP at 0:53 from Brendan Gaunce & Zharkov. As the 2nd period went along the Toro's went back to the PP but this time at 9:44 SH it was guess who ? Tyler Toffoli (32) from Sean Monahan. Wasn't long after that, with Joesph Cramarossa in the sin bin for interference, Marc Zanetti scored his 3rd from Toffoli & Monahan. But the Bulls answered the bell, Cowbell if you will, when Michael Curtis scored his 9th at 18:52 from Gaunce & Brady Austin to tie the game at 2. This was good news because up to this point Belleville had been a perfect 8-0 when Curtis lights the lamp. But like it has been all weekend the 67's top line scored at 6:57 of the 3rd, Monahan from Toffoli, and Dalton Smith to seal the deal for the visitors 3-2. Sending the 2653 home thinking, that was better, but still not good enough ?? The Bulls out shot Ottawa 35-18, Special teams=PP 1/3 PK 5/6. Charlie Graham looked pretty good in his Bulls debut stopping 15 of the 18 shots he faced, with most of the shots being of the high quality variety. But on a weekend when Tyler Toffoli was poised to make Burnett and Team Canada maybe Question his exclusion, from the team, Toffoli had 8 points in the two games Vs the Bulls, with him and line mates scoring a combined 19pts Vs Belleville. The Bulls played their best game of the losing streak, now at 5, but it just came up a little short.
As Tuesday trade deadline approaches , with depth needs up front, also in need of PP help, maybe a solid d man , and now if John Chatrand is not 100%, is a goaltender needed ? Charlie Graham can only play ten games till he has to be returned to Wellington or signed, and my guess is they want him to play & develop with the Dukes, but the Bulls could just put their collective noses to the grind stone , stay pat and get ready for the Troops in Brampton on Thursday.