CHANGING THE GAME:
Could Isaac Nurse be the most effective player on the Bulldogs roster?
It’s too bad the Ontario Hockey League no longer hands out an award for hardest working player. Because Isaac Nurse deserves it. In his second OHL season, the 19-year-old from Hamilton has established himself as one of the most energetic, reliable and impactful players on the Bulldogs roster — and he’s only gotten better in the playoffs.
In fact, without Nurse, there’s a good chance the club would be playing catch up in its conference semifinal matchup against the Niagara IceDogs instead of going into Game 2 at FirstOntario Centre Saturday with the series lead.
On Thursday, the 5-foot-11, 185pound winger scored the opening goal and the overtime winner in a 5-4 contest that shouldn’t have been close. The Bulldogs were in complete control with 23 minutes left in regulation when they allowed the IceDogs to score four unanswered goals and send the game to OT.
“What happened was we got away from what worked,” head coach John Gruden said Friday, and that was playing with pace and smarts and a little bit of caution. The Bulldogs did all those things before falling apart in the third period, just
as they did in Game 2 of their first-round series against the Ottawa 67’s.
The only difference in this case was they managed to come out of it with a win.
After that “wake-up call” against Ottawa, Gruden overhauled his line combinations in a bid to boost chemistry and generate more and better offensive chances five-on-five. That included moving Nurse up from the fourth line to play alongside Mackenzie Entwistle and Matt Strome, who to that point had been flanking Robert Thomas. Success.
In the four games since, the trio has combined for five goals and 12 assists while also filling an important shut-down role.
“That’s what we said after Game 2 — we need more Nurse,” Gruden said. “I put him on a different line and I think it’s turned our playoffs around.”
Entwistle, who set up both of Nurse’s goals on Thursday, agreed his linemate has been one of the team’s strongest assets on this young post-season run.
“He’s one of those guys. It doesn’t matter where he’s playing, it doesn’t matter who he’s out there with, he plays the exact same way every night, and I think everyone respects him for that,” he said.
“He’s kind of like a hidden gem.”
Seven months ago, it would have been impossible to predict that Nurse — an 11th-round pick in 2015 who was cut in his first training camp with the Bulldogs and on the cusp in his second — would be a playoff standout on this squad stacked with NHL prospects. Yet he is. And if his teammates want to win this series they would be wise to follow his lead since the upstart IceDogs have far more to give than they showed in Game 1.
They know that, though. Nurse’s work ethic “rubs off on guys,” said defenceman Riley Stillman. “So we need him to keep going the way he’s going and we’ll have great success, because if everyone works as hard as Nursey no one can play with us.”
After Saturday’s game, the best-of-seven heads to St. Catharines for Game 3 Monday and Game 4 Tuesday. The action gets started at 7 p.m.