Moose hand Bulldogs second weekend loss

By Garry McKay
HAMILTON SPECTATOR

The Hamilton Bulldogs chances of finishing first are gone but second place is still very much in the picture.

The Manitoba Moose beat the Dogs 3-2 Sunday in Winnipeg to officially end Hamilton’s hopes of catching them for the top spot in the AHL’s North Division.

Fortunately for the Dogs, who are currently in third place, the second place Grand Rapids Griffins fell 4-1 in Philadelphia.

That means that the Dogs still trail Grand Rapids by fourth points. Both teams have five games remaining in the regular season and they play each other three times including twice this week.

The Bulldogs host Grand Rapids on Friday at 7:30 p.m. and Saturday at 7 p.m. at Copps.

Their final meeting is Friday April 10 in Grand Rapids. The Dogs end the season the following day in Toronto.

At stake is home ice advantage in the first round playoff series the Griffins and Bulldogs will play against each other.

Yesterday, as they had on Friday in a 2-1 overtime loss in Winnipeg, the Dogs held a wide margin in shots (46-25) but struggled to get pucks past Moose netminder Corey Schneider.

“We had some really good chances, I would say at least 20 good scoring chances,” said Hamilton coach Ron Wilson who admitted that he’s concerned that his usually high scoring team is suddenly having trouble putting the puck in the net.

“We had 85 shots in two games and scored three goals. We are getting the chances and we’re rolling four lines but some guys haven’t scored in a while.”

Wilson wasn’t unhappy with the effort, however.

“We competed hard and it was another game that we could have won, should have won and didn’t,” he said.

Brock Trotter gave the Bulldogs a 1-0 lead at 3:35.

Jason Krog’s 29th goal of the year tied it for the Moose in the second.

Travis Ramsey gave Manitoba their first lead of the game at 5:31 of the third and Jason Jaffray scored what would turn out to be the winner at 12:03.

Ben Maxwell got the Dogs back to within one on a power play at 128:12 but they couldn’t get an equalizer past Schneider.

The Dogs played without defenceman Dan Jancevski who was called up to Dallas.
The race for the fourth and final playoff spot in the North Division got tighter Sunday when the Syracuse Crunch beat the Marlies 4-3 in a shootout in Toronto to move into a tie with them for fourth. Both teams have five games remaining.