IceDogs embarrassed in lopsided loss
Eight seconds into their game Saturday night versus the Kingston Frontenacs at the Meridian Centre, the Niagara IceDogs found themselves down 1-0. Things didn’t get any better, either, as the Frontenacs made it 2-0 less than two minutes later.
Those first two minutes set the tone as the IceDogs dropped an 8-1 decision in one of their most uncompetitive, embarrassing efforts of the season.
Minutes following the game, Niagara coach Ben Boudreau calmly addressed the media to try and explain the debacle.
“We’re defeated mentally even before we start the game,” Boudreau said. “We miss an assignment, first shot on net eight seconds in, and you have to play the next 59:52 trailing when you battle hard enough for every inch of offence.
“Since the trade deadline, you look at the goals and the defence, we haven’t been able to put six full D. You show up battered and bruised and mentally, you’re already defeated before you start the game. Your belief goes right out the window and you spend the next 58 minutes with no belief you can crawl back and that’s a tough 60 minutes to be part of.”
The IceDogs have now dropped four straight — they were coming off a tough 7-2 defeat at Mississauga Friday — and now sit firmly in the Ontario Hockey League basement with a 16-34-6-1 mark. They trail the Barrie Colts by 10 points for the eighth and final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference with only 11 games to play.
“You never give up,” Boudreau said. “As a coach you try and find a way to motivate and find a way to inspire. It’s a compete factor, it’s a talent factor, something that we cannot match the other team. They wanted it more and when they found a way to make more plays, it’s a struggle to know you don’t have a sword in the fight.
“The best analogy I can say is I believe sometimes I feel like we’re riding a donkey in a thoroughbred race right now. Every team we face is better, they’re stronger, they’re faster.”
Boudreau admitted he and his staff have their work cut out for themselves the rest of the way.
“It’s a defeated mentality from a group that has been beat up all year here. I’m just calling a spade a spade. Finding belief right now that you can win is few and far between on the individual players so from a coaching standpoint you have to try and inspire and make them believe they are good enough and make them believe they can play.”
Boudreau couldn’t recall such a difficult time in all his years behind the bench.
“This is by far the toughest stretch in my coaching career and I’ve been part of over 700 games and I can’t remember a stretch like this,” he said. “I feel for the players, I feel for the staff right now. It’s tough to come to the rink every single day as the season dwindles down and you feel, like I said, you don’t have a sword in the fight, but at the same time, you can’t accept that. You can understand it as coach, but you can’t accept that and you find a way to spend tomorrow finding a way to get to the drawing board on Monday because we don’t want to keep going where every home game is an embarrassment like that and that’s calling it what it was. It was an embarrassment tonight.”
Boudreau did say the club would be giving their younger players more playing time as the season winds down.
“This is the time now, especially in the last 11 games, our young guys are going to get a ton of ice and they’re going to develop and it’s going to be tough because our younger guys are going up against playoff experienced teams who are ready to compete now.
“We hope right now as we deal with the rain to get to the sunshine, we just have to find a way just not to give up, although I do think that we did that tonight. We have to get back on the horse Monday and try and finish the race.”
Ice cubes: Michael Podolioukh, Masen Wray and Andrew Wycisk did not dress for the IceDogs . . . Kyle Downey, Van Williamson, Adam Cavallin and Xander Verlliaris were scratched for the Frontenacs . . . Ryan Vannetten scored at 19:50 to ruin Mason Vaccari’s shutout . . Kevin He (28) and Ryan Roobroeck (22) scored in Mississauga Friday.
STATS PACK
Frontenacs 8 IceDogs 1
Kingston’s Gabriel Frasca and Jax Dubois.
Niagara IceDogs: Ryan Vannetten (4).
Kingston Frontenacs: Gabriel Frasca 3 (12, 13, 14); Jax Dubois 2 (21, 22); Linus Hemström (17); Christopher Thibodeau (15); Luke McNamara (9).
Game stats: Shots on goal: By Niagara on Mason Vaccari (26), by Kingston on Charlie Robertson/Owen Flores (33); Power plays: Niagara 0/3, Kingston 2/5; Penalty minutes: Niagara 10, Kingston 6.
Attendance: 4,549.
Next up: The IceDogs are back home Thursday to face the Ottawa 67’s.
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