Sea Dogs ready to face hungry Oil Kings

Vincent Ethier/CHL

SAINT JOHN - The Saint John Sea Dogs are prepared to face a determined Edmonton Oil Kings squad tonight.

While it's technically not a must-win game for the Oil Kings, going down 0-2 at the Memorial Cup is a big hole to climb out of. Edmonton dropped their first game of the tournament Tuesday night, falling 4-3 to the Shawinigan Cataractes.

"When you lose a game your team is going to be better," said Sea Dogs head coach Gardiner MacDougall following the team's practice Wednesday at TD Station. "We know we're going to face a best edition of our opponent tonight. We have to be ready."

MacDougall said he talked to his team about the recent Stanley Cup Final games between the Tampa Bay Lightning and Colorado Avalanche. After losing 7-0 in Game 2, Tampa rebounded with a 6-2 win a couple days later.

"Obviously they're going to come out hungry," said forward Brady Burns. "They just lost last night. We're obviously 1-0 but we've got to have the same mentality that they do. They want this one but now we've got to come out and want it more. I think our team is pretty confident. As the coach said, we want to get better and better every game and I feel we've done a good job doing that over the past month. I think every day we've seen improvement and I think the more we play the more we'll get better. 

"I think we're going to come out and try and have a good first 10 minutes and the we'll worry about it from there out."

Edmonton went 16-3 in the WHL playoffs, never losing back-to-back games.

"They're obviously a really good team," said Burns. "We expect them to come out really hard tonight after last night. They're big, physical. They're a fast team. They're coming out of the west for a reason. They're going to be hungry tonight. We've just got to stick to what we do best. We don't need to worry about other teams. We've just got to play our game and we're really confident in that. We've just got to play Sea Dogs hockey."

Burns' team got off to a good start in their tournament opener, scoring just 2:17 into the match. Saint John scored twice in the opening frame and went on to defeat the OHL champion Hamilton Bulldogs 5-3.

One problem area for the Sea Dogs on Monday was the penalty kill. After going a perfect 17/17 on the PK in their first round playoff loss to the Rimouski Oceanic, the Sea Dogs allowed two power play goals on two opportunities against the Bulldogs. Hamilton's third goal came on a five-on-four advantage with their goaltender pulled.

One positive was that the Sea Dogs were fairly disciplined.

"What I liked about it was that we only had two (penalties)," said MacDougall. "We'll be better tonight."

Nikolas Hurtubise, who made 17 saves in Monday's contest, we'll get the start in net. Game time is 7 p.m.