The Erie Otters talked about it. Dylan Strome went out and did it.
Strome had a tournament-record four goals and three assists and Taylor Raddysh added two goals and four helpers as Erie routed the Saint John Sea Dogs 12-5 on Monday at the Memorial Cup.
Strome’s seven-point outing broke the tournament single-game record of six, which had been reached four times. The last was Mike Mathers in 1992. Erie’s 12 goals also set a new record.
“(Strome) let me know that we were tied for a record and he let me know on the bench, friendly joke,” said Raddysh. “Cool for him to get that seventh one there.”
“We were having fun playing hockey, things were rolling for us,” said Strome. “It’s a best-on-best tournament and I don’t know what to say, sometimes you have a good night and sometimes you don’t, for whatever reason we had a good game.”
Offensive night
Darren Raddysh struck twice and had two assists, Anthony Cirelli and Alex DeBrincat each scored once and set up three more, while Kyle Maksimovich and Ivan Lodnia added the others for the Ontario Hockey League champion Otters (2-0). Troy Timpano made 18 saves.
Cedric Pare scored twice while Mathieu Joseph, Spencer Smallman and Julien Gauthier had the others for the Sea Dogs (0-2), the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League champs. Callum Booth gave up five goals on 14 shots before being pulled in favour of Alex D’Orio, who made 18 saves in relief.
The Otters play host Windsor (2-0) on Wednesday with the winner going straight to the championship game. The loser will play in the semifinal.
“We had some good streaks in the season but this is big for us, feeling pretty good and we’ll be ready for the Windsor game,” said Taylor Raddysh.
Saint John concludes the round robin against Western Hockey League champion Seattle (0-2) on Tuesday. The victor will grab a spot in the semis, with the loser calling it a season.
‘Have to regroup’
“We got a sudden-death game,” said Saint John coach Danny Flynn. “I think we were a little surprised by how good (they) are. “We’ve been on our heels a little bit. We have to regroup. We got down early and sort of lost our spirit.”
Erie beat Booth with four of its first eight shots to take an early three-goal lead. Timpano didn’t fare much better early, allowing two goals on the first three shots his way.
Taylor Raddysh opened the scoring, just 1:06 in.
Pare tied it for Saint John at 5:43. But it didn’t stay even long as Darren Raddysh responded only 57 seconds later and Maksimovich made it 3-1 at 8:33.
Strome scored with 9:49 to go in the period. The play was reviewed for offside, but the call stood after video footage was inconclusive.
Joseph cut Saint John’s deficit to two at 13:32, but Cirelli scored with less than four to play in the first, ending Booth’s night.
Saint John took seven straight minor penalties leading to four second-period goals and another one early in the third. The Sea Dogs also lost defenceman Jakob Zboril, who was handed a game misconduct late in the second.
“Instead of playing our hardest, including myself, especially myself, we started taking penalties and it didn’t help at all,” said Sea Dogs defenceman Thomas Chabot.
Taylor Raddysh scored his second of the game seven minutes into the second, taking advantage of a 5-on-3 power play.
Strome’s second made it 7-2 while still playing 5-on-4, at 8:26.
‘Relaxed’ after eighth goal
Smallman got one back for the Sea Dogs with 2:07 to go in the second, but DeBrincat and Darren Raddysh both added a power-play goal before the period was through for a 9-3 lead after 40 minutes.
“I think once we got the eighth goal we were pretty comfortable,” said Strome. “The eighth goal, kind of just settled in and relaxed and enjoyed it.”
Lodnia fired a power-play goal just 22 seconds into the third period to reach double digits on the scoreboard.
Strome made it a hat trick at 5:32, then scored his fourth of the game at 13:20 to set two new tournament records on one play.
Pare and Gauthier added late goals for Saint John.
“There’s nothing to say,” said Chabot. “They just taught us a lesson in hockey.”
