Another test
Islanders host Sea Dogs tonight with first place on the line
The Charlottetown Islanders can move into first place in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League tonight with a win over the Saint John Sea Dogs.
The teams both loaded up at the trade deadline in early January. The Sea Dogs won the first meeting since the deals on Jan. 29.
Islanders head coach Jim Hulton said the last game was overhyped, but the team needs these tests as it prepares for the playoffs.
“You start talking about must-win games in the middle of a season, what happens if you don’t win?” he said.
“We have done a really good job of keeping ourselves up into that pack of (top) teams and pushing Saint John and now we’d like to push past them, but it’s just a game we want to go out and win.”
Saint John (35-13-3-1) leads Charlottetown (35-15-3-0) by a point with a game in hand. Saint John lost to Shawinigan Saturday after winning its previous nine games while Charlottetown is 8-1-1-0. That one regulation loss was to the Sea Dogs.
“We know (it will be) a battle, we know it’s against our rival as well, so it should be a fun one,” defenceman Carl Neill said before Monday’s practice. “We know they’re a great team, so we have to be prepared. It’s going to be good to play against them with (PierreOlivier Joseph) back as well, so that should help us out.” Joseph missed the last game with Saint John while attending the top prospects game.
Charlottetown lost the first three games after the trade deadline, but has gone 11-1-1-0 since then.
Neill said there was no panic inside the room, knowing it would take some time to come together.
He pointed to Shawinigan going through a similar process a year ago.
“When you (bring) in a whole bunch of new guys at the deadline, it’s always a challenge to make everybody mesh together,” Neill said.
“I think what you’re starting to see on the ice now is the boys starting to get used to playing with each other.”
The Sherbrooke Phoenix former captain credited the leadership of Islanders like Guillaume Brisebois and Kameron Kielly for helping bring everybody together.
While there has been some recent lopsided wins, Hulton pointed to players committed to backchecking and blocking shots, as guys are buying into the way the team needs to play to be successful.
Neill and Hulton both said they like parts of their game the last time they met Saint John. Neill said Saint John did a better job of capitalizing on its chances.
“I think we’ve learned from that game,” he said. “Hopefully it makes us better as a team.” Hulton said his team started well, sagged a bit and Saint John responded. The Islanders came on strong late, but it was too late.
“We pushed back and we got aggressive and that’s the way we have to play.”