Sea Dogs aiming for better outing against Otters

Saint John has chance to avenge blowout loss, reach final against hometown Spitfires

It was a record blowout when the Erie Otters and Saint John Sea Dogs met in round-robin play at the 99th MasterCard Memorial Cup.

The Otters scored a tournament record 12 goals in that game and will now look to get past the Sea Dogs in Friday’s semifinal at 7 p.m. at the WFCU Centre. The winner advances to Sunday’s final against the host Windsor Spitfires.

“The last time we played them, we were embarrassed,” Sea Dogs defenceman Thomas Chabot said. “Frustrated the way we came out and the way the game ended up. We weren’t happy the way we showed up the last game.”

No one is projecting another blowout like that 12-5 Erie win, but many wonder if it’s possible to turn the tables on an opponent after such a lopsided victory.

“Erie’s a great hockey club,” Saint John’s Matthew Highmore said. “They have a great team over there, but we’re confident in our ability. On any given night, anyone can beat anybody.”

The Sea Dogs were slow to find their skating legs at the tournament with back-to-back losses to Windsor and Erie. The club finally recovered in a 7-0 win over Seattle to clinch a spot in the semifinal.

“We said before the last game of the round robin, it’s the best deal in hockey,” Sea Dogs head coach Danny Flynn said. “You win one game you’re in the national semifinal. We have an even better deal (now). We win one game and we’re in the national championship.”

But the Sea Dogs will draw an Erie team that not only rolled in the first meeting between the two teams, but one still stinging from Wednesday’s loss to Windsor that sent the winner to the final. “Not the way we want to go in, but we’re not done,” Erie centre Kyle Pettit said. “We still have a chance to make it to the final and hopefully, we can do it.”

Otters head coach Kris Knoblauch feels the blowout win followed by the loss to Windsor will actually help his team.

“I think it would have been very difficult playing back-toback (against Saint John), but we had the game against Windsor,” Knoblauch said. “I think reality’s sunk back in that we have to play better, we have to execute and I think we’ve completely forgotten about the 12-5 game. I think it’s very important to stay humble. Nothing allows you to be more humble than a loss.”

Windsor’s big forwards were aggressive on the forecheck and made life in the neutral zone tough against the Otters, but Saint John isn’t the same team.

“We’re a different team than Windsor,” Flynn said. “Any team that’s a high-scoring team, if you can spend time in their zone and make them defend, it’s going to take away from their opportunities offensively.”

Erie has shown it has the most dynamic offence in this tournament and if the Sea Dogs can’t find a way to force the Otters to think defence more than offence, it could have a similar ending to the round-robin meeting.

“Everything is in our hands right now,” Chabot said. “All our mistakes we did last game are things that we control.

“We didn’t show up. We didn’t execute. We didn’t use our speed.

We didn’t forecheck. All of the system things, we didn’t do them when we played Erie and when we came out against Seattle, we finally came back to our system. We used our speed, we brought bodies to the net, shot more pucks.

“That’s something that brought us a little more success.”