Sea Dogs advance to Memorial Cup semis

WINDSOR It’s starting to look like the tournament of blowouts.

After two tight games to start the 99th MasterCard Memorial Cup, the Saint John Sea Dogs produced the third-straight blowout victory on Tuesday.

A six-goal outburst in the second period carried the Sea Dogs to an 7-0 win over the Seattle Thunderbirds before a crowd of 5,062 at the WFCU Centre in a game where the winner got a spot in Friday’s semifinal and the loser was sent home.

Saint John will await the loser of Wednesday’s battle of the unbeaten between the host Windsor Spitfires and Erie Otters, who are both 2-0. The winner of that game gets a bye into Sunday’s final.

“In the playoffs, you live day-today,” Sea Dogs head coach Danny Flynn said.

Just 24 hours after watching Erie put a record 12 goals up against the Sea Dogs, the club bounced back to stay alive in the tournament.

“(Monday) was disappointing,” Sea Dogs forward Mathieu Joseph said. “When you face adversity in life and fail, you have to bounce back and you have to bring that in hockey.”

Both teams came into the game having not held a lead in either of its first two games. After a scoreless opening period, the opening goal of Tuesday’s match loomed large.

“The first goal’s huge,” Saint John’s Samuel Dove-McFalls said. “It’s always pretty big, but bigger (Tuesday).”

Joe Veleno, who was granted exceptional status to play in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League a year ago, gave the Sea Dogs that coveted lead.

Chase Stewart and Joseph scored 15 seconds part to make it 3-0. Spencer Smallman made it three goals in 53 seconds, which was just off Windsor’s record-tying three goals in 38 seconds on Sunday against Seattle.

At that point, the Thunderbirds pulled Seattle goalie Carl Stankowski for veteran Rylan Toth, who was beaten by Cole Reginato on the first shot sent his way.

Seattle head coach Steve Konowalchuk called timeout at that point to try and regroup his team, but Bokondji Imama scored soon after play resumed to put the Sea Dogs up 6-0.

“We deserve to be here, even if we (didn’t) show it (it in the first two games),” Joseph said. “We have a good team.”

It took the Thunderbirds 40 years in the Western Hockey League to win its first title, but the club departs without a win in the tournament and was outscored 18-3 in three games.

Veleno added his second goal of the game in the third period and goalie Callum Booth made 31 saves to post the first Memorial Cup shutout since 2015.

“You have to go one day at a time,” Joseph said. “You can’t think too far in a tournament like that. If you think too far, you’re not going to play your best hockey and maybe that’s one of the reasons why we’ve been playing pretty bad (in the first two games).”