Sea Dogs enter playoffs on hot streak, winning last 15 regular season games

After finishing the season as the hottest team in the league, the Saint John Sea Dogs kick off the playoffs tonight, when they face off against the ninth-ranked Rimouski Oceanic. 

The puck drops at 7 p.m. at TD Station. 

After "a bit of an underwhelming first half," the Sea Dogs managed to finished the season in third place in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League standings, said Jamie Tozer, the editor of Station Nation, a blog dedicated to all things Sea Dogs. 

Tozer said the team made some significant mid-season trades, with some "huge adds to an already good mix," to come up with the recipe for success.

"They've been one of the best teams, not only in the league, but in the entire country since the holiday break. So, they're really, really coming into the playoffs hot." 

Very hot, in fact. Fifteen-wins-in-a-row hot. 

"It doesn't happen very often," said Tozer. "This is the longest streak in the league this season."

To put that into perspective, Tozer said it ties "the third-longest winning streak this team's ever had — and they've had some really good teams over the years. So this is pretty impressive."

With a strong finish to the season, Tozer said the team definitely deserves its number three slot, and "maybe if the season was a little bit longer, they might have been able to catch Charlottetown and Quebec."

Against the Oceanic, Tozer said the Sea Dogs "are definitely the heavy favourites going into that series and I think the biggest thing for the Sea Dogs is they just need to focus on playing their game." 

He said they'll need to focus on offence. 

"Rimouski is a fairly good defensive team. They don't allow a lot of goals and they don't allow a lot of shots. So if I'm Saint John, I'm focusing on that."

The Sea