Aggressive approach marks recent turnaround
They’ve won two straight and grabbed five of six points over a three-game span.
The Soo Greyhounds have regrouped and defenceman Matthew Virgilio has a pretty-good idea how they’ve done it.
“When we’re being aggressive and relentless, that’s what makes us successful,” said Virgilio, whose club is coming off of an impressive 7-3 victory over Sarnia on Sunday at GFL Memorial Gardens. “That’s when we’re playing our best and we’re difficult to beat.”
The 16-year-old (2006 birth year) first-year player enjoyed arguably his best game of the season against the Sting. He notched a pair of assists – one on a beautiful stretch pass – and finished the day with a plus-minus of plus-4.
Virgilio, a five-foot-11, 190-pounder, noted how the Hounds “are often matched against teams with bigger-name players. So we have to be aggressive against them all over the ice.”
The club’s recent turnaround began with a 5-4 overtime loss in Windsor last Thursday. It was a game in which, arguably, the Soo deserved a better fate.
Going in, the Hounds switched to a more-assertive 1-2-2 forechecking style, replacing the 1-1-3 they had been employing. Since then, the change has allowed them to put more pressure on opponents.
Virgilio, a Vaughan, Ont., native, noted how head coach John Dean “is OK with mistakes, as long as they’re aggressive mistakes.”
And being aggressive will again be the key on Wednesday when the Greyhounds play host to the Saginaw Spirit in a 7:07 p.m. start.
The modified approach also involves “a lot less thinking and just going out and being aggressive,” Virgilio added. “Since switching to a 1-2-2 forecheck, our forwards have just been creating havoc. They’ve been making opposition defencemen turn over pucks.”
And the Greyhounds, who’re slated to entertain Kitchener on Friday and Erie on Saturday in 7:07 p.m. starts, have also been able to effectively limit time and space.
“There’s no doubt about it. When we’re aggressive we play our best,” said Dean, whose club stands ninth in the Western Conference with a 16-22-8-5 record. “We have to be extremely engaged and tenacious.”
Kitchener (23-24-2-0) holds the eighth-and-final playoff spot in the conference. Going into their Tuesday night home game against London, the Rangers were three points ahead of the Soo with two games in hand.
Flint (24-25-3-1) is seventh, seven points ahead of the Hounds, who have two games in hand on the Firebirds.
With a 24-22-4-1 mark, Guelph sits in sixth place, eight points better than the Soo.
“We need to be a team that gets pucks behind the opposition’s D and takes away their time and space,” Dean added. “We’ve changed our forecheck the last three games, both in the offensive zone and the neutral zone. We think that better suits our style of play this season.”
Though they surely weren’t impressive last Friday in Saginaw, the Hounds managed to secure a 4-3 win when Mark Duarte scored the clinching shootout marker. That snapped an eight-game losing skid.
And while the Spirit have struggled since dealing star defenceman Pavel Mintyukov to Ottawa at the trade deadline, the Greyhounds realize they must bring their best efforts to Wednesday’s game.
“They’ve been in a slump, so they’re going to be hungry,” Virgilio said of a Saginaw team that is 2-11-0-1 over the last 14 games. “We’ll have to play hard. We’ll have to be that much better than we were against them last week.”
“They outplayed us the last time,” Dean said of last week’s matchup at the Dow Event Center. “We got lucky to come out with those two points.”
Despite its recent difficulties, the Spirit has a number of talented players who can hurt opponents.
They’ll enter Wednesday’s clash with a 26-21-2-1 mark, fifth in the conference.
“They take away time and space better, or as good as, any team in the league,” Dean said. “So, our puck management and poise under pressure will have to be very good.”
The Hounds coach offered some good news on Tuesday saying he expects centre Bryce McConnell-Barker to play on Wednesday. The Soo captain was on the receiving end of a thundering body check by Sarnia’s Nolan Dillingham late in Sunday’s win over Sarnia.
McConnell-Barker didn’t return after leaving the game with 4:40 left in regulation.
“He’s fine,” Dean told Independent Media on Tuesday.
Of his list of injured players, Dean said only rookie centre Christopher Brown (upper-body) was day-to-day and might be ready for the Saginaw clash.
The Soo coach also spoke of his team’s inconsistencies this season, noting how, moving forward, his team must “put together a body of work that’s extremely consistent.”
Notes:
The head-to-head matchup with Kitchener is the first of two before the conclusion of the OHL season. The clubs are also slated to square off in Kitchener on Feb. 26.
