The IceDogs cometh

By Randy Russon
April 25, 2016
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Underachievers during the regular season, the Niagara IceDogs have come together in the playoffs and are on the cusp of advancing to the Ontario Hockey League championship series.

With so many high National Hockey League draft picks in the lineup, the IceDogs were cast as pre-season favourites to finish atop the Eastern Conference of the OHL.

But despite all of the talent and despite mid-season acquisitions that included standout goalie Alex Nedeljkovic, Niagara finished fourth with a modest 77 points in the 10-team Eastern Conference, barely ahead of the fifth-place Ottawa 67’s, the sixth-place Peterborough Petes and the seventh-place Mississauga Steelheads.

The playoffs, though, has brought out the depth, experience and power of Niagara.

The IceDogs have shown an ability to win the close games in the playoffs and prevail with victories even when out-shot or out-chanced.

In the first round of the Eastern Conference playoffs, Ottawa gave Niagara all it could handle but the IceDogs had puck-luck on their side and got the timely goals to prevail four games to one.

The second round presented a daunting task for Niagara in the form of the top-seeded Kingston Frontenacs, who had finished 20 points ahead of the IceDogs during the regular season. But Niagara stole the first two games of the series right in Kingston and went on to a stunning four-game sweep of the Eastern Conference, regular-season champs.

Now into the Eastern Conference finals, Niagara is up two games to none on the second-seeded Barrie Colts and has an overall playoff record of 10-1.

Nedeljkovic has been a playoff sensation between the pipes and high-end, first-round NHL draft picks such as Josh Ho-Sang and Brendan Perlini have come through as big-game performers on the forward lines.

There is still a ways to go — Niagara needs to beat Barrie twice more to make it to the OHL finals — but thus far into the playoffs, the IceDogs are living up to the pre-season hype.