Sea Dogs salvage two points from Quebec trip

[dogcatcher]

Sea Dogs salvage two points from Quebec trip
Hockey Saint John wins in overtime Sunday in game continued from Friday

Andrew McGilligan
Telegraph-Journal
Published Monday November 19th, 2007
Appeared on page B10

BAIE-COMEAU, Que. - The Saint John Sea Dogs left four points and four players in Quebec during their three-game trek through the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League's Telus division.

The four players - Chris Di Domenico, Alex Grant, Yann Sauve and Simon Despres - were left back due to their participation in tonight's Canada/Russia Challenge. The event pits a team of QMJHL all-stars against their Russian counterparts.

The four points were a result of inconsistent play in different areas of the game.

Their final full-game of the road trip was a 5-3 loss in Baie-Comeau to the Drakkar. The Sea Dogs jumped out to a 3-0 first period lead thanks two power-play goals from Ryan Sparling and Di Domenico and an even strength marker from Scott Howes.

The final two periods were all Baie-Comeau with five unanswered goal, three with the man-advantage, from Jean-Philippe Paquet, Samuel Morneau, Francois Bouchard, Alexandre Boivin and Mathieu Tousignant.

Saint John head coach and general manager Jacques Beaulieu said the team simply came up against a good squad in the Drakkar.

"They just kept coming at us," he said. "They're very good on the rush and an all-around good hockey team."

"It was two good hockey teams going at it, not much more you can say."

The Achilles heel of the Sea Dogs on Saturday was their penalty kill. Baie-Comeau scored three times on four chances against the Sea Dogs, ranked third overall while short-handed in the QMJHL.

Oddly enough, it was another team strength, the defensive zone, that let them down against the Quebec Remparts. The special teams were outstanding in the 7-6 loss, but the team allowed five even-strength goals.

Due to a power outage at the Georges Vezina arena in Chicoutimi after two periods on Friday, the Sea Dogs played the final frame Sunday and hung on for a 5-4 overtime victory over the Chicoutimi Sagueneens. Di Domenico had a pair of goals including the OT winner for Saint John while Howes, Grant and Brett Gallant had regulation markers.

Jacob Lagace, Francis Pare, Joel Champagne and Nicolas Deschamps scored for Chicoutimi.

The Sea Dogs jumped out to an early lead thanks to the power play. Di Domenico snuck in from the left point and one-timed an Alexandre Picard feed past Sagueneens starter Bobby Nadeau at 8:13 of the first period for a 1-0 lead.

The lead bulged to 2-0 at 17:14 of the opening frame thanks to some good vision from Steven Anthony.

On a two-on-one break with Picard, Anthony slid the puck to a trailing Howes who fired it into an open net.

The Saint John power play went back to work late in the first period. The puck bounced off the end boards and towards a pinching Grant who fired the puck past Nadeau for a 3-0 lead through one period.

The second period saw tough-guy Gallant etch his name on the score sheet. Gallant took a pass in the neutral zone from Jeff McNeil, drove to the net and used a Chicoutimi defenceman as a screen snapping the puck past Nadeau for a 4-0 Saint John advantage.

The marker chased Nadeau from the game and Francois Levesque took over the Chicoutimi goaltending duties.

The second would end with the Sea Dogs up by four.

The third period began over a day later and the Sagueneens struck first. Lagace banged in a rebound on the power play past Sea Dogs starter Travis Fullerton to cut the lead to 4-1.

Chicoutimi kept up the pressure and cut the Saint John lead to 4-2 at 10:56 of the third.

Pare slid a backhand past Fullerton on a scramble in front of the Saint John goal.

Things got even tighter at 16:52 of the third as Chicoutimi scored their second power-play goal of the period. Champagne found himself all alone in front and fired a shot past Fullerton. The Sagueneens would tie it nine seconds later on a goal by Deschamps. The final tally forced the game into overtime.

Despite being outgunned in the third, the Sea Dogs scored in the extra frame. Di Domenico banged in his second of the game off a scramble in front of the Chicoutimi goal with 37 seconds to go in OT.

The win improves the Sea Dogs record to 14-7-1-2 while Chicoutimi falls to 12-13-1-0

Despite leaving Quebec with two points, the Sea Dogs can take a lot of positives out of the road trip. First is the power play, which looked unstoppable. What had been a concern for much of the season clicked on the trip and is now ranked amongst the top units in the QMJHL.

The team can also take solace that in their two losses, they had the chance to win despite not having played complete games.

As for this week, the Sea Dogs will look to avenge Saturday's loss to Baie-Comeau when the Drakkar come to Harbour Station for a 7 p.m. game on Friday.

Saint John's four players in the Canada/Russia Challenge will return home Thursday after wrapping up their set against the Russians on Wednesday in Gatineau.

As for taking the ice against the Russians, Di Domenico said he's excited.

"I've been looking forward to it for the last week," he said. "There's lots of great talent going out there like (Francois) Bouchard and (Claude) Giroux and getting a chance to play with them will be a great experience."

Sauve said getting the opportunity to play in the Challenge for the second-straight year is an honour.

"Getting to play against another country like Russia and a different style of game is a good experience," Sauve said.

Tonight's first match-up will take place on the Olympic-size ice surface of the Georges Vezina arena in Chicoutimi. The second-year Sea Dogs blue-liner said it will be an adjustment.

"They're going to be fast and they're used to (the ice surface), so we just have to play our game," Sauve said. "You just play your normal game, the first shift is a little different but you get used to it quickly."

Three of the Saint John players are expected to dress for both contests. Rookie defenceman Simon Despres is slated to play only one of the two contests.

Both games can be seen on Rogers Sportsnet with coverage beginning at 8 p.m.

[bjindaho]

Maybe next time we can use all four lines and have a chance to win more than one game

[Judas In My Mind]

People keep going on about that, but it's hard to roll 4 lines, especially on the road. For one I heard a few people saying we only played two lines...I recall seeing the third line out there quite a bit, especially Gauthier and Leduc as they see time on the PK and PP.

You can say use the fourth line to keep the other lines fresh...but on the road you don't have last change. Thus you risk having the fourth line boys out there against the other teams best line. I recall a few times in that Baie Comeau game our fourth line was out there and Baie Comeau just kept the puck in our end the whole time until someone could finally ice it. How many goals against would the Gallant/Thomas/Kirkpatrick line give up if they got a regular shift and had to go up against the Espo line? The Pare line? The Bouchard line?

At home you can play them more as you can play matchups. On the road it's not so easy.

[bjindaho]

change on the fly!

[springer]

It is hard to juggle four lines but when you are getting out hit night after night eventually you have to get some bangers in your line up somewhere. I am not sure how to do that but if the legs are going in November what are they going to be like in the second half of the season. A lot of coaches like to run their horses in the first half and they are left scratching their heads down the stretch when they cannot get the job done. We are clearly starting to lose leads and for a team that is supposed to be strong on defence we are letting a lot of shots on net. I really liked the line JB put together with Stoddard, Anthony and Thomas about a month ago. Three young guys who can play physical and also can cause some problems for the opposition. It would be nice to have that one strong checking line but the forth line we have now does not have the right players to do that. We have been a bit lucky lately and I am not complaining but can we keep the pace over the long haul.

[canucklehead]

jrsuperstar said:

People keep going on about that, but it's hard to roll 4 lines, especially on the road. For one I heard a few people saying we only played two lines...I recall seeing the third line out there quite a bit, especially Gauthier and Leduc as they see time on the PK and PP.

You can say use the fourth line to keep the other lines fresh...but on the road you don't have last change. Thus you risk having the fourth line boys out there against the other teams best line. I recall a few times in that Baie Comeau game our fourth line was out there and Baie Comeau just kept the puck in our end the whole time until someone could finally ice it. How many goals against would the Gallant/Thomas/Kirkpatrick line give up if they got a regular shift and had to go up against the Espo line? The Pare line? The Bouchard line?

At home you can play them more as you can play matchups. On the road it's not so easy.

This reason is exactly why!!!

You can change on the fly once you clear the puck but sometimes that's easier said then done.

[Judas In My Mind]

All it would take is a goal or two scored against us while the fourth line boys were on the ice, and the comments of "What was JB doing with those guys out there at that time of the game!!!" to start pouring in. Please. All this talk of the players being tired and blowing leads...the only regular occurance of "lead blowing" was this road trip. Maybe the long bus ride, which was the first ever for some of these kids, had something to do with that too?

[chillywack]

Where were all the naysayers after the Dogs kept coming back to win games from large defecits ... St. John's, Moncton (twice), for example.

[reddogbluedog]

Chillywack if you read some of the earlier post this year you will see that a few people were concerned about the fact the JB tends to play his top two lines to death. Our comments were not negative but simply stating that when we go on road trips in Quebec and when we get into the second third of the season that this could have an impact on games. It appears that this could have some merit. If they scored on a checking line then we live with that but teams are starting to come back at us in games and it was not just the road trip. I just think that we need a checking line that can also play hockey and that has not happened yet. Down the stretch you have to grind games out and we are not showing that we have that potential. I think we were outhit by a huge margin on this road trip unless I was watching the wrong teams.

[bjindaho]

But our fourth line usually includes 2 PKers in Thomas and Kirkpatrick. So as long as you don't have them against the other teams #1 all the time(a #2 they can handle), which is done by putting them on right AFTER the other team's #1 line comes off, they should be able to handle things for a shift. And Brett and Mike are VERY good at pinning the puck against the boards and starting a cycle game.

[reddogbluedog]

We are only talking an extra shift or two a period. Not like they are going to be on the ice for ever. Bjindaho has the right idea above. That extra couple of minutes rest will pay huge dividends at the end of games and as the season wears on. You cannot advance in the playoffs without having at least one line that can grind it out.