Sea Dogs have cooled down of late

Michael Hawkins/Saint John Sea Dogs

MONCTON - It was bound to happen.

After a fairly smooth and successful start to the season, the Saint John Sea Dogs have officially hit their first skid. The team has dropped three straight games and are now just 3-7-0-0 in their last 10, falling below .500 with an 10-11-0-0 record.

The painful part (but also a positive in the big picture) about Saint John's losing streak is that they've been in all the games on this streak, losing all three by a single goal. But some offensive struggles and defensive blunders in those games proved costly, which is often the case for a rebuilding club like the Sea Dogs where margin for error is slim.

While Saint John does have three wins under their belt in recent weeks, all three of those came in overtime. The Sea Dogs haven't won in regulation since Oct. 18 when they defeated the Acadie-Bathurst Titan 3-0.

One of the major problems for the Sea Dogs of late: their power play. Saint John has the third worst man advantage in the league at 16.1%. They've only scored two power play goals over the past 10 games.

Nov. 9 at Rimouski: 0/3

Nov. 8 at Quebec: 0/1

Nov. 7 at Victoriaville: 1/1

Nov. 3 vs Val-d'Or: 0/4

Nov. 2 vs Rouyn-Noranda: 0/3

Oct. 31 vs Moncton: 0/1

Oct. 27 at Gatineau: 0/2

Oct. 26 at Drummondville: 0/3

Oct. 25 at Sherbrooke: 1/4

Oct. 20 vs Bathurst: 0/4

Coincidently, Tyler Peddle hasn't scored since Oct. 25. Five of his seven goals this season have come on the power play.

Things aren't going great for the Sea Dogs right now, but that's how it goes in this type of season. At this stage of a rebuild, there's going to be a lot of ups and a lot of downs. The question is how quickly can the Dogs get themselves back up, which will say a lot about this group.

The Sea Dogs will not have an easy task when they return to play on Thursday, visiting the CHL top-ranked Moncton Wildcats. Working for Saint John is the fact that they defeated Moncton in overtime just a couple weeks ago.

On Saturday the Sea Dogs will travel to Bathurst to play the Titan. The team returns home the following weekend, hosting the Charlottetown Islanders on Nov. 22 and Nov. 23.