Scott Radley: Bulldogs’ roll continues with win in Game 1 of third-round series

As he looked for a way to explain how or why he collected four points in Friday's 5-2 win over the North Bay Battalion, he dug straight into the well-worn pages of the standard-issue-hockey-player-interview manual. Not boastful. Deflective. As non-spotlight-grabbing as they come.

The puck was bouncing our way tonight," Hamilton Bulldogs' winger Avery Hayes said in the wake of taking a 1-0 lead in the third-round playoff series.

As credit-taking goes, it's a little like Paul McCartney explaining the creation of Hey Jude by saying, I just pushed some piano keys.'

Funny thing about Hayes and that answer, though. The puck seems to bounce his way an awful lot.

I guess this year, so far," he says, chuckling.

On Friday, he set up the first goal, set up the second goal, set up the third goal and scored the fourth goal. It's the second time he's had at least four points in a game these playoffs. A couple weeks ago he actually had five against Peterborough. That's impressive.

But it's the bigger picture that's really amazing.

In the pre-COVID-19 2019-20 regular season, he collected 29 points and finished the year minus-16. This year he racked up 79 points and finished plus-43. It was a remarkable jump.

I think the couple years off I got to work on my game a lot and work on my strength," the 19-year-old from Michigan says. That was one of my weaknesses before."

Not anymore. He's now the perfect third on a line with superstars Mason McTavish and Logan Morrison. A high-octane winger with a great shot, a knack around the net and a deft passing touch.

But, on a team with plenty of star power, Hayes ends up often being the flying-under-the-radar guy. The player who somehow doesn't get the same attention as others.

He was a sixth-round draft pick into the OHL. That doesn't help. Players taken there tend not even to make the league. He was never drafted into the NHL. Many of the eyeballs gravitate toward the big names. Even now, he says he knows of no interest in him from big-league clubs.

Wait, nobody has spoken to him? At all? Not one team?

No, nothing," he says.

This sort-of anonymity isn't warranted. He should get a ton more attention. He finished 21st in league scoring this year. And despite missing three games while serving a suspension, he's 14th in playoff scoring. Averaging better than two points a game. He's having a tremendous run.

But when your linemates are a third-overall NHL pick (McTavish) and a guy who collected 100 points this season (Morrison), it's easy to get overshadowed. And when your team has now won 19 in a row and 44 of your last 48, it's easy to not see the trees for the forest.

Maybe the Battalion even overlooked him a bit. After all, in the three regular-season games in which he'd faced them, he had just one assist. On Friday, he'd eclipsed that before the first period was over. And by the end of the night, those four points could've easily been six or seven.

You can be sure the Battalion won't be ignoring him on Sunday night at 7 p.m. in Game 2 at FirstOntario Centre.

And pretty sure even the guys like him, who don't get as much attention, will start to attract more and more eyeballs the longer this ridiculous Bulldogs run continues.

I think as we keep going on here, guys are going to start getting noticed," Morrison says.

You'd think.

Scott Radley is a Hamilton-based columnist at The Spectator. Reach him via email: sradley@thespec.com