The Niagara IceDogs put a bow on their most volatile season since relocating to Niagara Saturday with an 8-1 loss to the Barrie Colts.

The outcome was irrelevant — the IceDogs were already locked in to meet the Colts in the first round of the Ontario Hockey League playoffs beginning Thursday — and dropped the team’s final record to 29-31-4-4.

The final record is certainly respectable and good enough to earn the team their first playoff appearance since the 2018/19 season, but a long way from the start of the season that saw the IceDogs win nine of their first 11 games and head into the Christmas break at 22-9-1-1.

“It was a tale of two different seasons, obviously,” IceDogs coach Ben Boudreau said.  “And obviously, the first half, I think we over-accomplished, over-achieved. But we were motivated and we had the mentality that we were doing anything that we can do to win.

“And in the second half, you could see that we didn’t make any changes or trades. It’s the same personnel, but our mentality sort of changed and obviously that resulted in a lot of losses.”

The team also lost starting goaltender Owen Flores for about a month and backup Charlie Robertson for the rest of the season around the same time in February and the results were predictable — a 13-game losing streak and a fall from the top of the Eastern Conference standings.

“Losing your number No. 1 goalie, which I believe is undoubtedly our team MVP, really hurt us,” Boudreau said. “And so, the second half, nothing went right and it was really tough. That’s when we lost players and didn’t have enough gas in the tank to keep up with the teams that loaded up at the trade deadline here.”

Still, after winning just 12 games two years ago and only 17 last season, Boudreau feels 29 wins is a huge step in the right direction.

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