Bulldogs' playoff hopes began to unravel...
May 15, 2004 9:24:20 GMT -5
Post by M. Beaux-Eaux on May 15, 2004 9:24:20 GMT -5
...with the Balej trade
2003 - 04 American Hockey League: Hamilton Bulldogs
by Garry Mckay
The Hamilton Spectator
The Hamilton Bulldogs season may have ended on Sunday in Rochester but it actually began to unravel much earlier than that.
In fact, you can probably point to March 2 as the day the Dogs' Calder Cup aspirations began to go into the tank.
That was the day the Dogs parent club, the Montreal Canadiens, traded Jozef Balej to the New York Rangers for Alexei Kovalev.
The Bulldogs lost their leading scorer and got nothing in return.
Of course that's the nature of the American Hockey League where teams exist for the purpose of developing players for the show.
In fact, Balej could just as easily have been called up to Montreal and would still have been lost to the Dogs.
There's no denying, however, that Balej's departure had an impact on the Bulldogs.
He was not only the club's point-getter when he left but was so far ahead in both the Molson Cup Three Star standings and the Hometown Hockey Hero award for the hardest working Bulldog at home games that he won both honours despite not playing with Hamilton the final six weeks of the season.
Balej ended up with the Rangers' farm team, the Hartford Wolf Pack where he leads them in playoff scoring with six goals and five assists in nine games. His six goals include three on the power play and two shorthanded and four of them were game winners.
The Bulldogs' playoff hopes didn't end with the Balej trade.
A few days later, it was announced goaltender Eric Fichaud, who would no doubt, have been the Bulldogs' go-to guy in the playoffs, required season-ending surgery on his shoulder.
The loss of Fichaud meant that J.F. Damphousse was the Bulldogs' No. 1 goaltender in the playoffs.
Although he's been around the AHL for five years, Damphousse had only been in two playoff games.
Damphousse didn't lose them any games in the playoffs but he didn't win them any either.
What finally did the Dogs in, however, was the rapid fire loss of Jimmie Olvestad (concussion) and Gordie Dwyer (ribs) to injury and the season-ending suspension of Alexander Perezhogin during the first series with Cleveland.
It meant that several players, including Christian Larrivee and Marc-Andre Thinel, who toiled all year for Columbus in the East Coast Hockey League, were now being thrust into roles they weren't ready for at this stage in their professional development.
Perezhogin was leading the Bulldogs in scoring in the playoffs when he was suspended for the remainder of this season and for all of next for striking Cleveland defenceman Garrett Stafford in the face with this stick.
His loss cost the Hamilton club speed and scoring and, while they won't admit it, no doubt weighed heavily on the minds of the Bulldogs worrying about their popular teammate.
After winning that emotional series against Cleveland, the Bulldogs had simply nothing left in the tank for Rochester.
Head coach Doug Jarvis and assistant coach Ron Wilson did a good job all year of installing a system that stressed sound, fundamental play in their own zone but allowed for a great deal of creativity in the offensive zone.
It served the Bulldogs well all season but no system could overcome the loss of Balej, Fichaud, Perezhogin, Olvestad and Dwyer.
2003 - 04 American Hockey League: Hamilton Bulldogs
by Garry Mckay
The Hamilton Spectator
The Hamilton Bulldogs season may have ended on Sunday in Rochester but it actually began to unravel much earlier than that.
In fact, you can probably point to March 2 as the day the Dogs' Calder Cup aspirations began to go into the tank.
That was the day the Dogs parent club, the Montreal Canadiens, traded Jozef Balej to the New York Rangers for Alexei Kovalev.
The Bulldogs lost their leading scorer and got nothing in return.
Of course that's the nature of the American Hockey League where teams exist for the purpose of developing players for the show.
In fact, Balej could just as easily have been called up to Montreal and would still have been lost to the Dogs.
There's no denying, however, that Balej's departure had an impact on the Bulldogs.
He was not only the club's point-getter when he left but was so far ahead in both the Molson Cup Three Star standings and the Hometown Hockey Hero award for the hardest working Bulldog at home games that he won both honours despite not playing with Hamilton the final six weeks of the season.
Balej ended up with the Rangers' farm team, the Hartford Wolf Pack where he leads them in playoff scoring with six goals and five assists in nine games. His six goals include three on the power play and two shorthanded and four of them were game winners.
The Bulldogs' playoff hopes didn't end with the Balej trade.
A few days later, it was announced goaltender Eric Fichaud, who would no doubt, have been the Bulldogs' go-to guy in the playoffs, required season-ending surgery on his shoulder.
The loss of Fichaud meant that J.F. Damphousse was the Bulldogs' No. 1 goaltender in the playoffs.
Although he's been around the AHL for five years, Damphousse had only been in two playoff games.
Damphousse didn't lose them any games in the playoffs but he didn't win them any either.
What finally did the Dogs in, however, was the rapid fire loss of Jimmie Olvestad (concussion) and Gordie Dwyer (ribs) to injury and the season-ending suspension of Alexander Perezhogin during the first series with Cleveland.
It meant that several players, including Christian Larrivee and Marc-Andre Thinel, who toiled all year for Columbus in the East Coast Hockey League, were now being thrust into roles they weren't ready for at this stage in their professional development.
Perezhogin was leading the Bulldogs in scoring in the playoffs when he was suspended for the remainder of this season and for all of next for striking Cleveland defenceman Garrett Stafford in the face with this stick.
His loss cost the Hamilton club speed and scoring and, while they won't admit it, no doubt weighed heavily on the minds of the Bulldogs worrying about their popular teammate.
After winning that emotional series against Cleveland, the Bulldogs had simply nothing left in the tank for Rochester.
Head coach Doug Jarvis and assistant coach Ron Wilson did a good job all year of installing a system that stressed sound, fundamental play in their own zone but allowed for a great deal of creativity in the offensive zone.
It served the Bulldogs well all season but no system could overcome the loss of Balej, Fichaud, Perezhogin, Olvestad and Dwyer.