IceDogs split weekend games
Charlie Robertson came back to haunt his old team Sunday making 34 saves as the Niagara IceDogs topped the North Bay Battalion 3-1. Photo by: NIAGARA ICEDOGS.
Charlie Robertson stole the show this weekend for the Niagara IceDogs.
The 18-year-old netminder kicked out 34 shots against his former club as the IceDogs knocked off the North Bay Battalion 3-1 in Ontario Hockey League action Sunday afternoon in North Bay.
“It started with Charlie Robertson, I thought he was phenomenal making his debut for the IceDogs, making his return to North Bay. It was lightning in a bottle with him,” IceDogs coach Ben Boudreau said. “He looked like a sound goalie that’s been there before and it was great to see his teammates react around him and his reaction to the win, I thought that was great too.
“North Bay is a very good hockey team and if it wasn’t for Charlie, I don’t know if we would have been in it. Collectively, as a group, we found a way.”
Robertson, a former Ridley College student who was acquired from the Battalion earlier this month, was making his first start in goal for Niagara. Owen Flores had started the previous 14 games, including Saturday’s 7-0 loss at Barrie. Robertson finished up the third period of that game, making 15 saves on 16 shots in the third period.
“If he plays like that, you want to give him another game,” Boudreau said of Robertson. “At the same time, I think Owen Flores has put us in a position to play competitive games in January and that’s a lot of credit to him.”
The IceDogs grabbed a 1-0 lead in the first on a goal by Andrew Vermeulen. Kevin He netted his 21st in the second period to give Niagara a 2-0 lead before Jacob Therrien closed the gap to 2-1. Ryan Roobroeck then scored his 13th to restore Niagara’s two-goal lead heading into the third. Former IceDog Andrew LeBlanc netted the loan goal of the third period.
The IceDogs were shorthanded for the weekend games, missing Michael Levin, Michael Podolioukh, Mathieu Paris and Andrew Wycisk.
“We gave specific roles to everyone here today. We told the top six forwards they needed to find a way to produce some offence,” Boudreau said. “We said to our third line they needed to check and play systematic hockey and they found a way to produce offence too which was a huge shot in the arm.
“We found a way to play 60 minutes and bought in which is really important.”
Not much went right Saturday as the IceDogs fell behind 2-0 after one and 6-0 after two.
“The five, five-on-five even strength goals against are really teachable moments and I really think it’s important as a team to understand why we gave up goals,” Boudreau said. “Then you go into tonight, and liked we talked about before, a resilient group and a great mix of characters we have in that dressing room. There’s a good amount of resolve with incredible leadership starting with Gavin Bryant and what we did tonight was focus on how we needed to play and how we needed to be better. The hard lessons we learned last night we took into today’s victory.
“We didn’t give up second chances, we managed the puck for 60 minutes and found a way to generate on our power play. It was a good recipe and had all the ingredients for a win.”
The IceDogs, 12-24-5-1, trail Barrie by three points for ninth place in the Eastern Conference and Peterborough by five for the eighth and final playoff spot.
Niagara plays host to Brantford (22-12-6-2) Thursday before going on the road to Kingston (20-21-1) Friday and Ottawa (20-17-4) Saturday.
With files from Brandon Caputo of The Armchair GM’s Sports Network.
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