Next month, the Ottawa 67’s will try and score their way through the OHL playoffs in pursuit of a league championship.
The team ranks among the top five major junior teams in the country in goals per game, but history has proven that offensive firepower alone cannot propel a team to a title.
The 67’s lack the crucial defensive mindset that many championship teams in years past have rode to the finals.
The Windsor Spitfires won two straight OHL Championships in 2009 and 2010, and while Taylor Hall carried their offence, shutdown defence ultimately lifted the team to the Memorial Cup.
Their defence core was so deep that five of their six defencemen from 2010 are currently playing professional hockey either in the NHL or the American Hockey League.
In comparison, it would certainly be surprising if the 67’s see more than one of their current defenceman move up to professional hockey in the near future.
The 67’s approached this season with an all-or-nothing mentality. They had no choice; their roster is stacked with 19 year olds on the cusp of exceeding the OHL’s age limit.
Among this bunch are the OHL’s leading scorer Tyler Toffoli, likely to spend next season in the Los Angeles Kings farm system; Shane Prince, who has notched nearly two points per game in the new year; team captain Marc Zanetti; starting goaltender Petr Mrazek and half of their current defencemen.
Let’s not forget the bittersweet situation of their top defender Cody Ceci, who will likely be a first round pick in this year’s NHL Draft, which means he could be moving on to bigger things next season.
The core of this team has a history of underachieving in the playoffs. In 2009, they lost in the first round and in 2010 they were easily defeated during the second round in five games.
Last season, after claiming the East Division crown for the second straight season, the 67's were swept by the lowly Sudbury Wolves in the first round, allowing a whopping 23 goals in a four-game span.
For a team to allow nearly six goals per game in a playoff series to an opponent that finished 31 points behind them in the regular season is nothing short of an epic defensive and goaltending collapse.
In the weeks before this year's trade deadline, the 67’s acknowledged their urgency to win when they acquired veteran forwards John McFarland and Mike Cazzola to bolster their offence in exchange for five draft picks and their most recent first-round draft pick David Perklin.
But these moves did nothing to bolster their defence. The team is going with the exact same blueline that completely flopped in the playoffs last year.
This season they have shown repeatedly that they are inconsistent and lack the grit and sturdiness of a championship calibre defence core, even against bad opponents..
Goaltender Mrazek is currently ranked eighth in the OHL for save percentage and 10th in goals against average.
Some are optimistic about his success at this year’s World Junior Hockey Championships, where he was named the top goalie, but a seven-game tournament is completely different than a four-round playoff journey. Mrazek needs a strong defence unit in front of him to succeed, but the 67’s don’t have that.
Indeed the tram is stacked with veterans, but the more important question is do they have a team stacked with playoff experience? The answer is no.
Not one player on the team has played beyond the second round of the playoffs, and when they had draft picks and young prospects to spare, they ignored the seasoned playoff veterans and shutdown defenders available on the market in favour of more scoring, which is clearly not their weakness.
The 67’s may be tearing their way through the regular season, but don’t expect this success to last in the depths of the OHL playoffs.