The Crushers lost their second of three games to the Halifax Lions at home last night during Game 3 of the seven-game series.
It’s not the way Coach Troy Dumville wants to see his team playing in playoffs.
“We’ve got to play our best to win in the playoffs and we didn’t do it tonight. That’s what it comes down to,” he said. “We let them off the hook again. We know we have to play physical. We played physical for half a game. That doesn’t get it done.”
The player who Dumville was most proud of was Michael Hynes.
“Mike Hynes was unbelievable tonight finishing checks,” he said. “Five-foot, nine, 165 pounds and he showed more guts than any of our players. That tells a tale right there. We need the big guys to look at a guy like Mike Hynes. He’s probably our most skilled hockey player, and he’s the one that led the team in hits tonight.”
Dumville said he wants to see the guys playing more like they did in Game 2 in Halifax.
“We’ve got to come out and play physical and defensive hockey and if we don’t compete we don’t win. That’s what happened tonight. We didn’t compete for 60 minutes,” he said.
The Crushers will be playing Halifax again on Friday night on the road.
“Friday night it’s not going to be easy,” Dumville said. “We need to go into that barn again and win. We need to compete harder than we did tonight.”
Assistant captain Dan Joyce said the guys for the most part played a good game last night but a couple lapses in the second period cost them. It seemed as hard as they tried, they just couldn’t score too.
“We were bouncing pucks all over the place, but that stuff happens in playoffs,” he said.
They’re going to have to regroup for Friday he knows.
“When we lost the first game we knew we had to come back in the next game harder,” he said.
They’ll have to bring that same approach for the next game.
“Down 2-1 going into their barn we know we have to come away with a win,” he said. “We don’t want to be down 3-1 coming back here facing elimination.”
For the most part he believes they will have to play the same style of game they have been.
“We’re playing hard, it’s just things aren’t going our way right now,” Joyce said. “We’re making a couple mental mistakes that we just can’t make in playoff time right now.”
