The Sports Corner

Heat don’t consider themselves underdogs against Bulldogs

There was a positive vibe and loud music surrounding the Abbotsford Heat following the team’s optional skate at the Abbotsford Entertainment and Sports Centre.

Less than 24 hours after they evened the North Division final at 2-2 with a resounding 4-1 win over the Hamilton Bulldogs, the Heat locker room was full of guys patting each other on the back while country music, a staple all season long post-practice, blared on the speakers.

Times are good.

And perhaps the time is up when people may have looked at the Heat as underdogs against the Bulldogs, the team that finished 24 points ahead of the next best team in the division, the Rochester Americans, in the regular season.

The reputation of underdog, said Heat forward Brett Sutter, never existed inside that dressing room.

“We respected our opponent but I don’t if we ever considered ourselves underdogs,” said Sutter, who leads the club in playoff scoring with 11 points in 11 games.

“We had confidence we could beat them, so yeah I think you could say it’s been shed but we don’t mind that.”

From the moment the match-up was set, it seemed everyone had predicted Hamilton to more or less walk away with this thing with nothing more than a few nicks and bumps along the way.

Especially after the way the Dogs quite handedly disposed of the Manitoba Moose in Round 1 of the Calder Cup Playoffs.

But that has hardly been the case.

Despite a line-up that featured just nine regulars from the start of the season, a line of freshly graduated junior hockey stars and a band of ECHL call-ups, the Heat looked like a team possessed.

They hit hard, took hits to make plays, blocked shots.

In other words, they played playoff hockey, and were, at least on Thursday night, the better team.

Hence the good mood surrounding the club on Friday.

“We’ve really tried to stay consistent with it as far as our emotional level whether it’s a win or a loss,” said the usually always-calm head coach of the Heat, Jim Playfair.

“We’ve given the players the time to come in and get what they need to prepare for tomorrow.”

And tomorrow, the Heat will have the opportunity to put the Bulldogs on the ropes heading back to Hamilton for Game 6 and, if necessary, Game 7.

Imagine that.

But the Heat, in keeping with Playfair’s doctrine on emotional consistency, aren’t getting ahead of themselves.

“We’ll go over some stuff in the morning that we can get better at and things we did good and can build off of our last game,” said Sutter.

“I guess we’re just a confident group and we just want to come play hard tomorrow.”

But just because things are good right now for the Heat, doesn’t mean this series still can’t change suddenly change direction and go Hamilton’s way.

The Bulldogs, despite missing P.K. Subban while he plies his trade with the Montreal Canadiens as they take on the Pittsburgh Penguins in the Stanley Cup playoffs, still have numerous weapons left in their arsenal.

Certainly Playfair has made his group aware of the fact Hamilton still poses a danger with the series now a best two-out-three with a possible duo of games still to come in southern Ontario.

“When you look at it, they’re still the team that finished top tier in the league,” said the coach.

“They’re still the Hamilton Bulldogs. . . they work very hard, they have system structure and they believe that they’re one of the top teams in the league and that’s what we’re up against.”