Kingston Frontenacs drop playoff opener 7-4 to favoured 67s in Ottawa

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Published Mar 27, 2026 • Last updated 58 minutes ago • 4 minute read

hockey Ottawa 67’s centre Jasper Kuhta (right) fights for position in front of the Kingston net with Frontenacs defenceman Will Bishop in Game 1 of their first-round playoff series at TD Place on March 27, 2025 in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. (Photo courtesy of Tim Austen/Ottawa 67’s)Article content

The Kingston Frontenacs wasted a second-period rally against the favored 67’s falling, falling 7-4 to Ottawa in Game 1 of their first-round playoff series at TD Place Friday night in the capital.

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67’s defenceman David Bedkowski’s goal 30 seconds before the second intermission broke a 4-4 tie and stood up as the game winner.

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The two teams came into their post-season opener with reputations for tight defensive hockey and attention to detail, but the game was at times messy and rife with undisciplined turns by both sides.

“I didn’t expect a 7-4 game coming in,” Kingston coach Troy Mann said.

The two teams’ 17-year-old starting goaltenders won’t have fond memories of their first major-junior playoff games.

Ottawa’s Ryder Fetteroff was the league leader with a 2.07 goals-against average and .923 save percentage, but uncharacteristically he was beaten four times on 31 shots.

Gavin Betts has likewise had better nights and also faced 31 shots under considerable duress.

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The 67’s, the third seed in the Eastern Conference, opened the scoring six minutes in when their forecheck and cycling had the Frontenacs reeling in their own end. Ottawa’s Filip Forsberg fired a shot from close range through traffic. Though Betts made the first save, the rebound went straight back to Forsberg and the Swedish import threw the puck into the wide open cage.

Two shifts later Spencer Bowes tipped home a shot by defenceman Kohyn Eshkawkogan and Ottawa had a 2-0 lead before Kingston had registered their second shot on goal. At that point, the 67’s looked poised to rout the sixth-seeded Frontenacs.

On the next shift though, Ottawa defenceman Kaleb Dietsch acted on impulse and it proved costly to his team’s cause and also ended his night.

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Kingston right winger Nolan Snyder tripped up Dietsch’s blueline partner Bedkowski when he was chasing down a loose puck behind Fetteroff’s net. When Bedkowski tumbled into the end wall, the officials blew the play dead and hit Snyder with a minor for boarding.

Dietsch jumped Snyder who was face down on the ice and punched him several times in the back of the head. Officials rightly hit Dietsch with a five-minute major for fighting, giving Kingston a three-minute powerplay. They also tagged him with a game misconduct that left Ottawa playing the last 52 minutes with five defencemen.

Though Kingston didn’t score on the ensuing powerplay, Snyder scored later in the period when Eshawkogan turned the puck over in front of Fetteroff’s net. Snyder went in alone on the Ottawa goalie and deked him before lofting a backhander into the net. The 16-year-old scored in his first major-junior playoff game, just like he did in his first major-junior game also against Ottawa last September.

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The Frontenacs went into the intermission down 2-1 but buoyed by the turn in the action. Expectations of a low-scoring game went out the window in a six-goal second period.

Ottawa took a 3-1 lead on on Ekberg’s second goal of the game just 89 seconds into the period.

Three minutes later, Kingston centre Tomas Pobezal, who had a strong game, wired a wrist shot from a sharp angle that beat Fetteroff high on the glove side, a bad goal by his standards. For his part Pobezal also had a fight—more of a wrestling match—with Ottawa’s leading scorer Cooper Foster later in the period.

Nic Sima restored Ottawa’s two-goal lead three shifts later, with a powerplay goal that came with Kingston defenceman Lukas Moore serving a double minor. Mann’s umbrage was plain in the post-game–Moore was heading to the penalty box having been called for a two-minute penalty for holding, but the officials tagged him with an addition minor for roughing when he knocked down Forsberg en route.

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“You just can’t do that in that situation,” Mann said.

That, however, set the stage for the underdog Frontenacs to rally and rattle the 67’s who were consistently ranked in the CHL’s Top 10 this season.

Kingston’s fourth-line grinders were a handful for the home team all night and just past the 12-minute mark left winger Riley Clark fed a pass to overage defenceman Will Bishop skating into the slot and, though more of a stay-at-home sort, the blueliner clinically beat Fetteroff for his first playoff goal of his career.

The fourth line of Clark, centre Matthew Frost and right winger Nolan Buttar stayed out for the ensuing faceoff and just 11 seconds later Clark beat Fetteroff to tie the game.

For the balance of the period, the 67’s were on their heels and Kingston’s young players were acclimating to the pressure of post-season play.

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Bedkowski’s game-winner came when Kingston’s all-rookie third line of Snyder, Robin Kuzma and centre Aleks Kuzma were on the ice and after the game coach Mann was second-guessing himself.

“Maybe that’s on me having the young guys out there and should have gone with the older guys,” he said. “It’s game management. We have to go into the third period tied. That late goal was a dagger.”

Kingston did try to rally in the third, but fell behind 6-4 on Cooper Foster’s goal with seven minutes left in regulation. The Frontenacs were still trying to make a game of it and even had a two-man advantage with two minutes to go, leading to a 6-3 powerplay situation with Betts pulled in favour of an extra attacker.

Despite a few good looks, though, they couldn’t draw any closer and Ottawa’s Connor Bewick put the game away with an empty-net goal with 38 seconds left.

The teams meet in Game 2 at 3 p.m. on Sunday before the series moves to Kingston for Game 3 on Tuesday and Game 4 on Thursday.

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Kingston Frontenacs drop playoff opener 7-4 to favoured 67s in Ottawa

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