Brandon Caputo
(@BCaputo_AGM)
The Niagara IceDogs travelled to Brampton’s CAA Centre for one final game before their holiday break and back-to-back Central Division road games, after a 6-5 win up in Barrie the night prior.
With a point, Niagara would find themselves in sole possession of first place in the Central Division and the Ontario Hockey League’s Eastern Conference while Brampton came in holding the final playoff spot in the East, after being projected as the number one ranked team in all of the Canadian Hockey League to start the season.
Niagara would have Rafek Dianov, Darcy Dewachter and Nick Frasca scratched while Charlie Hotles took warmups as an extra forward with the IceDogs lineup being essentially fully healthy.
The Steelheads were missing some big guns away at the World Juniors in forwards Porter Martone and Carson Rehkopf as well as goaltender Jack Ivankovic all for Canada, while Jakub Fibigr and Adam Zidlicky were away as part of team Czechia.
Goaltender Owen Flores would start his 20th game in the last 21 contests for Niagara while Anthony Paolini would make his first career start for the Steelheads.
Veteran forward Alex Assadourian would come in red hot for Niagara with 8 points in 6 games since returning to the lineup while captain Kevin He would come in riding a 4-game goal streak and 13 points over his last 8 contests, freshly signed by the Winnipeg Jets in the National Hockey League.
GAME RECAP
Niagara would open the scoring as Mike Levin would take the pass and bury the shot on the right circle, taking the pass from Mathieu Paris for his 9th goal of the season, just over two minutes into the contest.
The Steelheeads would get on the board midway through the opening period as Zebeski would split the defence and go backhand over Owen Flores, evening the game up.
Ethan Czata would do a pretty give and go play with Braidy Wassilyn and Wassilyn finished it off with the quick snapshot for his 5th of the season, giving Niagara the lead once again. Shortly after it was Mathieu Paris tipping in the Andrew Wycisk point shot for his first of the season since coming back from injury, who looked to the sky in relief. Niagara led 3-1 after 20 minutes.
The Steelheads would get on the board in the middle period as Von Richter would lose the puck out front right to Chiarot who made no mistake shovelling it in past Flores to make it a 3-2 game as the IceDogs weren’t able to withstand the rush down the left wing resulting in an odd-man opportunity.
Niagara would draw a penalty thanks to Alex Assadourian using his speed and cutting through Brampton's defense, which could have been rewarded with a penalty shot on the play. As a result it was Mathieu Paris with a spin around backhand pass to Seattle Kraken prospect Andrei Loshko backdoor who buried his 19th of the season, which gave Niagara a 4-2 lead with that powerplay marker.
Owen Flores would make a massive pad save going from his right to his left late in the period on a breakaway to keep the IceDogs lead at two after 40 minutes.
Niagara would extend their lead in the final period as Ethan Czata took the pass from Ryan Roobroeck and finished off his rebound in tight over Paolini, to the delight of many family and friends in attendance being in Crate’s hometown.
The Steelheads would get on the board in the final period as the IceDogs were late getting back in front of their own end on the rush. The Steelheads would then get another in the final five minutes to make it a one goal game with Niagara reeling in their defensive end.
Ryan Roobroeck would seal it with an empty netter for his team leading 25th goal of the season and the IceDogs would be in sole possession of first place in the Eastern Conference with 46 points heading into the holiday break with their 22nd win of the OHL season and 46 points overall through their first 33 games.
POSTGAME THOUGHTS
IceDogs head coach Ben Boudreau liked the sounds of first place atop the Eastern Conference with 22 wins heading into the holiday break and reflected on just how far they have come in the first half of the season, after 17 and 12 wins respectively the two prior years.
“It sounds great,” Boudreau said. “It's something we were talking about. I know it's the regular season, but as far as using this as a measuring stick of where we could be, I just got a text, did anybody ever think that we would have been here? And I said, think it, for sure.”
“I think one of the biggest things for us is that we're actually realizing exactly where we all hoped we would be and it's been a collective job as a group. Going into this break finishing on a high note 7-0-1 in our last eight games, it’s a really good feeling.”
Boudreau spoke about being able to keep the group engaged with Holidays just a few short hours away and many of them leaving for home right after the game, being able to empty their internal gas tanks and close it out with a hungry young roster currently for the Steelheads, with so many new faces with their regulars away at the World Juniors or injured.
“To be honest, didn't love our game at all tonight,” Boudreau said. “We knew it, as a coach, you have to manage your own expectations, knowing these guys are looking forward to their friends or family, food, a little bit of holiday. You knew that there was going to be distractions, everybody had plans after the game.”
“How you manage that is I think the key and for us we did enough to win the game. It wasn't a Picasso, we didn't paint the most beautiful picture out there but we did enough to win and I thought we relied on Owen Flores a little bit too much at times. However, the result speaks for itself and the two points, it's what we came for.”
Niagara’s bench boss spoke of his forward depth being able to come through with the opposition doing their best to match up with top lines, which led to the opposition’s depth being heavily tested and leading to goals by the bottom-six and having every forward line take advantage of their opportunities on this night.
“It's really tough, you see teams trying to match their top line with some of our offensive output,” Boudreau. "That third line, (Mike) Levin scored on the backdoor. Then you’ve got Kevin (He) and (Andrei) Loshko. Oh, and then you've got (Ethan) Czata I mean, the list goes on right now; we're a high-scoring team.”
“On the fourth line, Max Crete is a rookie he's got eight goals. Right now it's an embarrassment of riches and we're all still pretty young. It makes you really excited for the future. We've averaged seven goals a game over the last five or six games, which is a ridiculous stat.”
The head coach's final message on what they need to do as the players head off for the holidays is to keep their heads forward and know there is still a half season to go of achieving their goal of making the playoffs and making some noise in this Eastern Conference, for what has been a fun first half rise up the standings.
“It's about keeping pucks out of the net when it comes time to do it in the playoffs and that's what we're heading for,” Boudreau said. “That's going to be something in the second half of the season we've got to really put a focus on.”
In closing, it’s safe to say that coach looks forward to not being in charge when it comes to the meal on Christmas as he looks forward to letting the cooks do the work and safe to say that he would like some red meat for the occasion.
“I want it to be steak, but I'm going with the turkey with the family,” Boudreau finished. “Either way, I'm not cooking and that's the important thing to me.”
HockeyStickMan Player of the Game:
Mathieu Paris - 1 goal, 2 assists +2 rating
Comments