Win vaults ’Dogs into 7th
Akil Thomas adds to Niagara rookie points record as IceDogs dominate North Bay
The Niagara IceDogs made a statement Sunday and punctuated the assertion that there’s plenty of bite backing up their bark with five exclamation points.
That’s how many insurance goals they scored in a 7-1 victory over the visiting North Bay Battalion that moved them four points ahead of North Bay, 23-36-4-2, in the fourteam race for the final three playoff berths in the Ontario Hockey League’s Eastern Conference.
With three games remaining in their regular season, the IceDogs, currently in seventh place with a 23-32-6-4 record, moved one point ahead of the Sudbury Wolves, 2433-7-0, and two back of the Ottawa 67’s, 25-32-7-1. Only Sudbury has a game in hand.
Niagara’s second impressive performance on home ice in as many games, coupled with a 6-0 North Bay loss the night before to the worst team in the league, turned the IceDogs into one of the teams being chased rather than one doing the chasing.
Neither Niagara IceDogs head coach Dave Bell nor Akil Thomas, the game’s first star with a goal and four assists, however, are concerned having some breathing room will shift the team’s focus away from the goal of a making the playoffs heading into the final week of the season.
“Our approach is we’ve never looked behind. In a game, we never look behind; in the standings, we’re always trying to catch the team in front of us,” Bell said. “I don’t care who’s behind us, I’m always trying to catch the team ahead of us.
“The guys behind us can do what they can do. As long as we keep winning our games and chasing the team in front of us, the teams behind us can’t catch us.”
Thomas said the IceDogs have had too much experience trailing in the standings this season to allow them take their foot off the gas at this point in their development as a team.
“Mindset-wise no just because we’ve been on the other end of things the last couple of games,” he said. “We’re just going to come out the same way we came out today.
“We know we can’t mess around and let a point get taken away from us. We need every point we can get, and the boys are just focused on winning every game from now on.”
Thomas credited the time of the game — a 2 p.m. faceoff, rather than the usual 7 p.m. — for helping the IceDogs in a must-win game that featured a playoff feel. He said it feels different for him coming to the rink early.
“It kind of feels like we’re about to practise,” he said. “Maybe the guys are a little looser than usual, which I guess turned out to be a good thing.”
The IceDogs took Saturday off after beating the Erie Otters 3-2 in a shootout the night before, but the break from practice didn’t affect them when they took the ice against North Bay.
“We prepared for it like it was our biggest game of the year,” Bell said. “Credit to the guys, they came in focused. Obviously, we did the right thing yesterday with rest.
“I liked their focus and their effort.”
Niagara forward Johnny Corneil said not giving the Battalion much of an opportunity to regroup after their disappointing loss Saturday night in Barrie was part of the game plan.
“We knew they got spanked in Barrie, so we wanted to come out hard,” he said after finding the back of the net twice to improve his team scoring lead to 30 goals.