Bulldogs: A tale of two teams

Club has picked up the pace since dealing players at trade deadline

The Hamilton Bulldogs should have suffered a blow when they dealt their two top scorers and starting goalie last month. Only they haven’t. Since trading overagers Stephen Harper, Mason Marchment and Charlie Graham at the Jan. 11 deadline, the Bulldogs have won seven of 16 games and earned points in 11 of them. Their win percentage is 45 per cent higher than it was in the 40 games before the break.

Head coach George Burnett said there isn’t any one reason for the change — chemistry, compete level and confidence all play a role. The same goes for teamwork. With Harper in the lineup, it was easy for the club to sit back and wait for him to take charge, he explained. “Now we’re not waiting for someone to do it. We’re doing it more as a group.”

This new mentality hasn’t only affected the team’s win tally.

Over the past six weeks, the Bulldogs have also:

Improved their average production by more than 0.5 goals per game;

Scored on 21 per cent of their power-play chances, up from 17 per cent at the deadline;

Allowed 11 per cent fewer goals per game, and;

Killed off 85 per cent of their opposition’s penalties, compared to 80 per cent in the first 40 games.

Perhaps the best news for the Bulldogs in all of this is the timing is right. The team’s performance of late has allowed it to skip past the Oshawa Generals — their only real competitor for eighth place in the Eastern Conference — and into playoff contention. At the trade cut-off, they were six points behind. “The mandate when we made those moves was to remain competitive, to give ourselves a chance to compete for a playoff spot,” said Burnett. “We’re not there yet, but we’ve been competing and we’ve been able to get some points against some pretty good teams.”

Hamilton will try to keep the upward tick going in the opening game of a home-and-home series with the Windsor Spitfires Saturday — the teams’ first meeting.

Puck drop is 7 p.m.