Game Notes From The Dog Pound: Hamilton 5 Abbotsford 3

Here are some comments and observations from the Hamilton vs. Abbotsford game at Copps Coliseum on March 28.

1 Here’s a look at last night’s line combos and D pairings

Tenute-Belzile-Holland

Leblanc-Bournival-Nokelainen

Stortini-Ouellet- Hagel

Vail-Lefebvre-Chaput

Merth-Ellis

Grassi-St. Denis

Beaulieu-Pateryn

The healthy scratches were Stejskal and Quailer. Not sure on the status of Desantis still out. Tinordi, Blunden and Dumont are still up with the Habs. Martin Lapointe was a guest coach behind the bench tonight.

2 The Dogs PP went 1 for 3 tonight bringing their total for the month of March to 5 goals for 32 chances for a 15.6% success rate. The main PP unit was Beaulieu, Pateryn, Holland, Tenute and newcomer Belzile. Pateryn scored the goal with helpers from Beaulieu and Holland.

3 The Dogs had a great night on the PK going 3 for 3 bringing the total for the month of March to 42 for 49 for a 85.7% success rate. Beaulieu, Pateryn, Nokelainen and Vail saw lots of PK time tonight.

4 The Heat outshot the Bulldogs 45 to 22. Tenute lead all Dogs with 4 shots while Street of the Heat led all players with 6 shots. Every Heat player except Tyler Ruegsegger had at least one shot on goal. The Dogs were outshot 36 to 12 over the last two periods of play.(1st period 10-9 Dogs, 2nd period 18-6 Heat, 3rd period 18-6 Heat)

5 Quick points:

a) Mayer has made 40 plus saves in 3 of his last 4 starts. He has stopped 131 of 142 shots in those games giving him a save percentage of 92.3.

b) Alex Belzile has scored a point in every game he has played so far with the Dogs. In the 3 games he has played he has 1 goal 4 assists for 5 points.

c) Nathan Beaulieu has 6 assists in his last 6 games after recording 2 last night.

d) Bournival has 2 goals and 4 assists in his last 10 games.

e) Holland has 3 goals and 5 assists in the 9 games he has played in this month.

6 A look at the 3 stars of the game

1st star Joey Tenute of Hamilton with 2 goals, 4 shots and a +1 rating would also have been my 1st star. He played a great game tonight.

2nd star Alex Belzile of Hamilton with 2 assists, 2 shots and a +1 rating would also have been my choice for 2nd star. He has been a good pick up for the Dogs scoring in every game he has played.

3rd star Patrick Holland of Hamilton with 2 assists, 2 shots and a +1 rating wouldn’t have been my choice for 3rd star. Robert Mayer who stopped 42 of 45 shots would have been my 3rd star. Even though Mayer gave up 3 goals in the third I think he played well enough to be picked. Holland would have been my Premium player.

7 Premium player of the game went to Nathan Beaulieu who had 2 assists, 2 shots and a +2 rating wouldn’t have been my choice. Don’t get me wrong Beaulieu played a great game but I would have picked Patrick Holland only because I thought Mayer should have received a star for his performance.

8 With one game left in the season series the Dogs are 4-2-0-1 and have shut them out twice. The Dogs still sit last in the conference 13 points out of a playoff spot with just 12 games to go in the season. With each passing game the chances of them making the playoffs grows slimmer.

9 Hagel vs Testwuide

In my opinion Hagel wins hands down he landed more blows.

10 Bulldogs win 5-3 over the Heat with Tenute scoring 2 goals while Beaulieu, Holland and Belzile had 2 assists each.

Bournival banked one in off the post at 10:41 of the first period to open the scoring for the Dogs with Beaulieu getting the helper.

St. Denis scores his second goal in two games at the 13:17 mark of the period to put the Dogs up 2-0. Lefebvre took a shot which was blocked and Freddy had nothing but open net to shoot at. Brady Vail got an assist on the play giving him his first point as a Dog and a pro.

Tenute scored his first of the night at 18:39 of the period to make it 3-0 Dogs. It would be the last goal Taylor gives up tonight as Brust replaced him to start the second.

The only goal of the second was scored at 6:14 by Pateryn on the power play giving him 2 goals in his last two games. It was also Hamilton’s 1st shot on goal of the period and the 1st Brust had faced since replacing Taylor.

The Heat scored at 1:52 of the 3rd on a shot by Max Rienhart that beat Mayer to the stick side. Abbotsford scored again at 6:01 when Horak picked up a rebound in front of Mayer that the Dogs failed to clear cutting the lead to 2.

Joey Tenute scored his second of the game at 8:36 to making it a 3 goal lead again. This goal was also scored on Hamilton’s 1st shot of the period.

Street scored the final goal of the game at 15:13 of the 3rd on a shot from the faceoff circle which Mayer should have stopped.

The Heat pulled the goalie with 1:37 left in the game but the Dogs held them off to seal the victory. Next game Friday night at Copps same two teams.