HAMILTON, ONTARIO. The Bulldogs short homestand continued at the FirstOntario Centre after the holiday break facing the Erie Otters in the team’s final game of 2021.
The Bulldogs entered the contest red hot after posting 10 goals in their last win over the Petes on the 17th. The first period was a back-and-forth battle with the Bulldogs & Otters each spending a considerable amount of time in each other’s end until Chandler Romeo started a play dishing to Avery Hayes who in turn danced around the Otters to the top of the slot where his long shot was deflected by Logan Morrison, scoring his 12th of the season at 10:04 to make the game 1-0. Two minutes later the Otters answered back to make the score an even 1-1 at 12:37 as Christian Kyrou fired a rocket to the top left corner. After 20 minutes of play, the game was left tied at 1 with Marco Costantini and Nolan Lalonde holding strong between the pipes at either end.
The Bulldogs set the pace for the second period with Brenden Anderson scoring his first goal in the OHL from Braeden O’Keefe, his first OHL point, and Noah Nelson at 3:03 to give the Bulldogs the one goal lead. As O’Keefe found the towering Anderson on the doorstep with a slick feed that Anderson fired over Lalonde. At 4:25 Noah Sedore came back to score his sixth of the season and the tying goal of the game. The Bulldogs managed to keep the play in the Otters end for most of the period despite the penalties called on them. That wasn’t enough to keep the Otters away from the net however as on a double-minor power-play, Erie scored the final goal of the period at 19:38 as Brendan Sellan deflected a Spencer Sova point-shot home to make the game 3-2 Erie, leaving the Bulldogs with a hill to climb.
The first half of the third period the Bulldogs kept control of the play leaving minimal room for error and leading in shots 22 – 18. The Otters managed to squeeze despite the Bulldogs pressure, and Colby Saganiuk scored his fourth of the season at 5:39 to give the Otters a 2-goal lead. Erie wasn’t finished just yet and scored another one at 9:08 through another Sova point drive to make it 5-2. The Bulldogs pulled Marco Costantini to give themselves the man advantage late but once again the puck luck wasn’t on their side. The luck wasn’t on the Bulldogs side as Noah Sedore hit the empty net at 18:22. Cameron Lowe would add one more at 19:53 to finish the game with a 7-2 Otters victory. The Bulldogs end the 2021 portion of their schedule with a 16-9-2 holding near the top of the Eastern Conference.
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