Ottawa 67’s: Sweden Takes The ‘In’ Out Of Lintuniemi And Finland
Until Alex Lintuniemi’s performance on the world stage this week, the terms “Finland”, “Ottawa 67’s” and “World Juniors” hadn’t meshed together since 1983.
On Christmas Day in 1983, with Ottawa 67’s legendary bench boss Brian Kilrea behind Canada’s bench, his team was lit up by Finland and their umbrella powerplay.
From there, as other European teams employed the system with one point man, Kilrea realized it was revolutionary.
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Upon returning to North America, a disappointing fourth-place finish with Canada in his back pocket, Kilrea employed the umbrella powerplay with the 67’s, the first noted time it was used in Canadian Junior, en route to a Memorial Cup Championship.
31 years later, instead of the Finns having an impact on the 67’s, the 67’s had an impact on the Finns, sending Lintuniemi to play for his country.
The difference is that the team that was dominant with the man advantage in 1984 was atrocious with the powerplay in 2015, and it was their downfall as the defending champs bowed out in the quarterfinals.
That being said, Lintuniemi wasn’t the one to blame for the powerplay failure, not spending much time on their top two units.
Much alike Cody Ceci when he played for the 67’s, Lintuniemi has a hard shot and can be effective on the powerplay, but his skill set isn’t conducive to quarterbacking one.
Lintuniemi will arrive back in town amidst trade rumours once his trade freeze lifts on Monday.
Any potential trade for the blueliner would have to set the 67’s up very well moving forward, otherwise they won’t leave a gaping hole on their top unit to finish the season.
Junior News & Notes in the NRC
- Benoit Groulx was in the same situation on Friday as he was in April; coaching against a team whose most dominant forward was Nik Ehlers. Fortunately, he didn’t have to gameplan around Jonathan Drouin as well this time.
- Gatineau isn’t going down without a fight. Barely hanging onto a playoff spot, Groulx will come home to find sniper Valentin Zykov, acquired by trade with Baie-Comeau, on his top line.
- Ottawa coasted to a 7-0 win over a Sudbury team sans overager Nathan Pancel, made a healthy scratch to await a trade.
- Other teams will be in on Sudbury’s Pancel, and the 67’s don’t need to make a move, but he would be a perfect fit alongside Dante Salituro and Jeremiah Addison.
- Sam Studnicka came back from an eight-game suspension and inched even closer to another suspension, picking up his fifth fighting major of the year against the ten-fight limit.
- Leo Lazarev posted his first career shutout on Friday, although he was only the second-best Russian born goalie in the Junior world on the day. Igor Shesterkin’s 39-save performance against the United States takes the title.
- On the flipside, it was seven goals in the other net a night later. The Soo lit up Marcus Semiao in his first OHL start, a 7-3 win for the Greyhounds.