Penalties hurt IceDogs
Niagara returns home trailing Peterborough 0-2 in Eastern Conference series
The Niagara IceDogs weren’t able to even their best-of-seven Ontario Hockey League quarterfinal against the Peterborough Petes at one win apiece, but it wasn’t for a lack of trying in the 6-3 loss.
Eighth-seeded Niagara outshot the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference 44-41, and the IceDogs matched their hosts goal-for-goal on the power play Saturday night in Peterborough.
Instead of letting being held scoreless on a 5-on-3 power play early in the third period take out of the game, they battled back and peppered St. Catharines native Dylan Wells with six shots over the final minute and a half in regulation.
“I really liked our intensity and our tenacity,” IceDogs head coach Dave Bell said. “They played hard, but they also take seven penalties, and that’s too many. “We can’t do that.” Anything more than four penalties is too many as far as the onetime pro is concerned. He pointed out very few are borne of frustration when bounces don’t go a team’s way.
“You’re always going to take one of two penalties for just hockey plays, one’s going to be a bad call so now you’re at three, maybe, four,” he said. “But headshots, slash and sticks that’s just stupidity, it’s not frustration.”
Still, the number of infractions assessed against a team with 12 first-year players has decreased since the beginning of a rebuilding season in Niagara.
“We’re getting better, which is good, and that’s what this season and the playoffs are all about is learning,” Bell said.
“So obviously tonight’s lesson is: Stay out of the penalty box.”
Despite trailing the series 2-0, the team can take a lot of positives from Game 2 into the third and fourth games, which will be played Tuesday and Thursday nights at Meridian Centre in St. Catharines.
“You take the shot count, it was good, our power play, when we didn’t negate it with other penalties, was good,” Bell said. “I thought we moved our feet better, so there are little things inside the game that I thought we did better than we did Thursday, but we took some steps backwards in other areas.”
“You’re always trying to find a balance.”
Niagara is looking forward to playing at home and feeding off the energy of a supportive fan base that Bell hails as the team’s “sixth man.”
“We’re extremely thankful and grateful for our fans and they push our guys on,” he said. “They’re an awesome crowd to play in front of.”
Niagara had 12 sellouts during the regular season and the IceDogs’ last home game attracted a season-high 5,453 spectators.
Steven Lorentz opened the scoring for the Petes in Game 3 with a highlight-reel rush up the ice that began beyond the far blue-line, involved stickhandling around a defenceman and beating Stephen Dhillon stick side on a one-on-one showdown.
Ryan Mantha, on a rocket from inside the right faceoff circle with the IceDogs playing a man up, and Johnny Corneil, assisted by screen set by Kirill Maksimov, also on the power play, put Niagara up 2-1 heading into the second period.
Nikita Korostelev, on the power play, and Jonathan Ang scored 56 seconds apart to give Peterborough a 3-2 lead.
Ang netted the eventual game winner 8:01 into the third period, with Lorentz, on the power play, for his second of the night; and Matt Spencer, into an empty net with five seconds remaining in regulation, rounded out the scoring for the Petes.
Maksimov also scored for the IceDogs.
’Dog Biscuits: The IceDogs have made the playoffs in each of their 10 seasons in Niagara. The only team they haven’t faced in post-season play during that streak is the Sudbury Wolves … Ryan Mantha led the league in the 2016-17 season with 317 shots on goal, and Stephen Dhillon made the most saves, with 2,312.