Bulldogs cash in on the road
OTTAWA — He doesn’t yell often. However, after his team’s truly awful effort in Owen Sound Wednesday, John Gruden was willing to try anything to get his message across.
“Sometimes you just need a little wake up call,” he said. “I don’t want to ever make excuses for these guys but we needed it, kind of to have a little come-to-Jesus with each other.” It worked. Over the weekend, Gruden’s Hamilton Bulldogs were exceptional in back-to-back wins in Kingston and Ottawa. His players agreed the verbal smack down, which was coupled with a lengthy video session, helped.
“It needs to happen every once in a while,” said defenceman Ben Gleason.
“It’s how you regroup, it’s how you refresh and it’s how you restart. It’s how you get your team back to where it was before.”
Over the past several weeks, the Bulldogs have struggled with playing down to their competition. In a lot of cases, they still won — they’re talented enough to get away with it — but not against Owen Sound, which is better than its eighth place standing suggests.
In that game, they fell behind by a goal midway through the second period and simply couldn’t recover.
This weekend was different, though.
On Friday, the Bulldogs were also trailing after 40 minutes in Kingston, but it wasn’t for a lack of effort.
In the final frame and again in overtime, they piled on the offence and locked things down in their own end to secure a 3-2 win in three-on-three — their first in nine tries this season. Brandon Saigeon scored the overtime winner.
In the aftermath, Gruden said the game — the first between the two contenders since a very busy trade deadline — was one of the fastest he’s seen in his three years behind an OHL bench.
Frontenacs coach Jay Varady agreed. “It was as fast a game as you’re going to see in the OHL, which makes it exciting for everybody — the teams, the coaches, the refs, the fans. I think everybody was entertained.”
Entertained, yes, but also exhausted. Which is why it is so impressive that the Bulldogs completely dominated against the less skilled but well rested 67’s less than 24 hours later. The score was 9-3. Will Bitten notched a hat trick against his hometown team and Arthur Kaliyev scored twice as the Bulldogs hit the nine-goal mark for the first time in the team’s three-year history in Hamilton. Matt Strome, Mackenzie Entwistle, Brandon Saigeon and Marian Studenic added singles, while Carter Robertson tallied twice and Austen Keating once for Ottawa.
“I thought the guys played really well because last night’s game was crazy, just a playoff feeling. We came out strong and wanted to finish today strong too and get a couple of days off,” forward Bitten said.
Gruden, meanwhile, was impressed with the response. His players got the message. They worked together, were unselfish and approached both games like they had “a job to do. Good stuff,” he said. “I’m proud of them.”
With the win over Ottawa, the Bulldogs improved to 29-10-3-3 and added to their healthy lead at the top of their conference. They’re off until Friday when they close out their four-game road run in Erie, Pa. NOTES: Robert Thomas was a standout in his second weekend with the Bulldogs. On top of scoring the tying goal and assisting the overtime winner against Kingston, the St. Louis Blues prospect had three helpers against Ottawa and a plus-five rating in the two games combined. … Kaden Fulcher and Nick Donofrio split starting duties on Hamilton’s eastern swing. The former had 34 saves and earned second star honours in Kingston, while the latter made 20 stops in Ottawa en route to his sixth win.