Barrie Colts vs. Niagara Ice Dogs – March 9, 2014

Aaron Ekblad and the Barrie Colts were in town for an afternoon tilt against the Ice Dogs. Ekblad as you know is a potential top 3 pick in this year’s draft. I was very interested in seeing how Ice Dogs star Brandan Perlinni did against Ekblad.

Last Niagara game I attended I made a note that Perlinni and Carter Verhaeghe should be playing together as they are the best two players on the team. I was very delighted when I saw those two playing together to start this game. I was also very excited to see Ice Dogs defencemen Aaron Haydon in the line-up as he was scratched in my previous game.

The game was very entertaining but remarkably one sided. The Ice Dogs dominated in terms of the score winning 5-2, but other than that this game was all Barrie. They won the scoring chance battle 23-18 and 18-10 at even strength. They dominated the shot clock as well, almost doubling Niagara’s shot total 48-26. Barrie was clearly the better team in this game despite the score. What went wrong for Barrie in this game was goal-tending. Niagara was being buried in their zone but a couple of quick breakouts were capitalized upon.

My main focus for this game was obviously Ekblad, and he was what I expected. He was put out the Perlinni line as much as possible, and for the most part did pretty well. He was a big part of keeping the Ice Dogs stuck in their own end.  He didn’t generate any scoring chances as he took a lot of point shots but I felt he did a great job of keeping pucks in the zone and pinching in at the right times. Scoring is not as issue as he is well clear of the 0.6ppg I like defencemen to have. He has 50 points (22G, 28A) in 54 games (0.92) this season. Defensively he is not the fastest skater and at times looked to get beat by a forward only to make a really nice poke check or hit to knock the puck loose. I don’t think his skating is an issue by any means it is just not elite. Ekblad played in all situations for the Colts, and by my estimation I would guess he played about 25 minutes in this game. He has the potential to become a great top pair defencemen in the NHL.

Perlinni understandably was not as good in this game as he was against Mississauga. He was not able to drive play but was still pretty clearly the best player on Niagara. Of what little offense Niagara generated it seemed to be when Perlinni was on the ice. His line combined for 9 of the 16 scoring chances for the Ice Dogs. He showed off his great shot, ripping one from the high slot, for his 32nd goal of the season. He was matched up against Ekblad as I said and he was not afraid to be physical with the big defender, hitting him when he could. One thing I didn’t like was that Perlinni took three penalties in this game; two for high sticking and one for elbowing. The elbowing one was a bad decision by Perlinni. He had control of the puck and went to shake off a defender so he left the puck to hit the defender and got his elbows up too high. The issue I had with the play was that he already had possession of the puck; he should be using his skill at this point to try and create chances, no reason to be hitting.

Outside of the two stars already mentioned I was particularly interested in Aaron Haydon. He is ranked 28th on central scouting list. That ranking feels very high to me as Haydon does not score at all. He has only 15 points in 56 games this season good for just 0.28ppg. I understand why he is ranked so highly and that is because he has great size (6’4, 200), skates well for someone with that size, and is physical and gritty. While those attributes are great they mean nothing if you don’t have at least some offensive potential. Think about it, if he is only scoring 15 points in junior what’s he going to do at the NHL level, 5points? 10 points? I don’t think he is even going to have a shot at the NHL unless he takes a huge jump in scoring next season, but that is just not something is see. He was dominated in the possession game, spending the majority of the game in his own end. As a shutdown defenceman he was playing against the top lines of Barrie but still as a guy projected to go in the mid second round I would like to see him have at least some success. He is not someone I want my team looking at come draft day.

Scoring Chances by Period

Team	First Period	Second Period	Third Period	Total
Barrie	8(6)	7(5)	9(7)	23(18)
Niagara	4(4)	7(3)	5(3)	16(10)