Bulldogs have 'business to take care of'
Brantford focused on final two games of regular season; Eastern Conference standings crowded at the top
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With two games remaining in the regular season, the Brantford Bulldogs will have a definite purpose this weekend as they prepare for the post-season.
“We’ve got business to take care of,” Brantford head coach Jay McKee said when asked about the team’s games in Kingston on Saturday against the Frontenacs at 7 p.m. and in Ottawa on Sunday against the 67’s at 2 p.m.
“We want to control our outcome. We don’t want to rely on other teams. We’ve got a lot of focus in these two games.”
Following a 7-1 win against the Niagara IceDogs (17-42-6-2) on Wednesday in their final regular-season home game at the civic centre, the Bulldogs (36-20-8-2) enter the weekend fourth in the OHL’s Eastern Conference with 82 points.
Brantford trails the first-place Oshawa Generals (38-19-7-2, 85 points), second-place Mississauga Steelheads (38-21-8-0, 84 points) and third-place North Bay Battalion (37-20-7-2, 83 points).
Right behind those teams are the Ottawa 67’s (35-23-5-2, 79 points) and Sudbury Wolves (36-22-4-3, 79 points), who are tied for fifth.
With Ottawa, Mississauga, North Bay, Oshawa and Sudbury all in action late Friday, Brantford will have a better idea of where its opponents sit well before the game in Kingston.
The result and performance against Niagara will give Brantford confidence heading into the weekend. The win against the IceDogs was the Bulldogs’ 24th straight victory against Niagara, dating back to Nov. 10, 2019.
In the Niagara game, Brantford got great efforts up and down its lineup but in particular, Adrian Rebelo, Jake O’Brien, Luka Testa and David Egorov were outstanding.
Rebelo, normally a forward, continued to prove how invaluable he is to the team by once again filling in on the blue-line to help bolster a depleted defensive unit that has been hit hard by injuries. He also added some offence by scoring against the IceDogs.
O’Brien, the team’s super rookie, notched a goal and two assists against the IceDogs. Now sitting at 50 assists on the season, O’Brien has the most assists in a season by a 16-year-old over the past 10 OHL seasons.
He is second among all OHL rookies during that time span as Alex DeBrincat was a 17-year-old rookie in 2015 when he got 53 assists playing with Connor McDavid on the Erie Otters, with McKee as an assistant coach on that team.
Testa was outstanding, scoring a goal and adding an assist. The forward was late starting the season due to injury and then missed more time after that with another injury.
“I thought he was moving his feet really well,” McKee said of Testa. “He was very engaged.
“When players score they get a boost of confidence internally but I think before that, he was really skating hard and making things happen.
“I was really happy to see that.”
With goaltender Mateo Drobac still out with illness, backup David Egorov played his third straight game and he was superb with 32 saves against Niagara.
“I was really impressed,” said McKee.
“I think if you look back at his last game (a 7-2 loss to Mississauga) he’d say he wanted some goals back so for a young goalie to bounce back from an off game and play really well like that . . . I thought he was fantastic.”
Even though Egorov filled in well, the net is Drobac’s when he returns and McKee expects that to be this weekend.
“He skated with us (Wednesday) morning for the pre-game skate,” the coach said of his No. 1 netminder.
“It was the first day he’d been on the ice since being pretty sick. He lost a little bit of weight as well and he was still drained. I was going to let him make the decision . . . and he just said when he got out there he felt really tired after the first five minutes so we made the decision together to go with Ego and Ego was fantastic.”
Against the IceDogs, Zak Lavoie (1G, 1A), Noah Nelson (2A), Owen Protz (2A), Florian Xhekaj (2A), Lawson Sherk (1G), Marek Vanacker (1G), Cole Brown (1G), Calvin Crombie (1A), Joshua Avery (1A) and Patrick Tomas (1A) also contributed offensively.
Tomas Hamara (lower-body), Cedricson Okitundu (lower-body) and Nick Lardis (upper-body) were once again out of the lineup on Wednesday. Ben Bujold left the game in the second period with an upper-body injury. His status is day-to-day but more precautionary than anything.
Noah Roberts was involved in a third-period fight with Niagara’s Evan Klein and received a major. It was the fourth fighting major of the season for Roberts and under OHL rules, players receive an automatic two-game suspension after their third fighting major.
As a bookend to the regular season, the Bulldogs honoured their three overage players – captain Lawson Sherk, defenceman Daniil Sobolev and Drobac – prior to the Niagara game.
“They’re all great teammates,” McKee said of the trio.
“They all have their exceptional things that they do on the ice and there are different attributes for each of them but they’re all really good people and really good teammates.
“We’re fortunate to have guys like those guys around to help build the culture and continue the culture that’s been set here.”
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