The Niagara IceDogs came up empty this weekend and head coach Ben Boudreau was not one bit happy about it.

The IceDogs dropped a 6-3 decision at Saginaw Sunday less than 24 hours after losing 4-1 at Flint which put an end to the team’s seven-game winning streak. 

“Everyone was talking about 7-0-1 and first-place IceDogs and all the good stuff and it completely went to our heads,” Boudreau said. “We were thinking we’re going to score all these goals and they’re going to hand us wins but we got completely outworked, outplayed and we got exactly what we deserved, to be honest, this weekend. 

“There’s no other way to say it. Both of the other teams were better than us in almost every category.”

The IceDogs came into the weekend leading the Ontario Hockey League in offence, but netted only four combined goals in the two losses. 

“We’re defending for three quarters of the game, we have no energy to score an offensive goal,” Boudreau said. “We gave up almost 60 shots yet again. I would like our group to care as much defensively as they do offensively because it’s not a way to sustain a winning culture.

“We’re one of the highest scoring teams in the league. We’re also one of the worst defensive teams in the entire league with two of the best goalies and so our group, as much as they buy in offensively, we don’t have that buy-in defensively. We’re at the halfway mark of our season, we’re a high-scoring team, but we’re in almost every single game very tightly because we give up goals and it’s not a way to sustain success here for long term.”

Boudreau said it is back to the drawing board Monday at practice.

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