Allard, Evans return, but Martin to miss Windsor weekend

Unless you’ve missed time due to injury or illness, you aren’t really a bona fide, 2024-2025 Soo Greyhounds player.

Sure, that’s a bit of an exaggeration.

But not much.

The Hounds have been an injury-or-illness-plagued club since the drop of the puck on opening night, Sept. 27 on home ice against Saginaw. That’s when star winger Marco Mignosa sat out his first of 10 straight due to a non-Covid illness.

Saturday, when the unofficial second half of the season begins against Windsor (7:07 p.m.) at GFL Memorial Gardens, the Soo will welcome two regulars back.

However, star centre Brady Martin, who owns a 15-14-29 stat line in 28 games, is one of three others who’ll remain on the shelf.

Martin (day-to-day with a lower-body injury), who was hurt on Dec. 18 in North Bay, is slated to miss his third straight start. The second-year centre will also be unavailable on Sunday, when the Hounds play host to the Spits (2:07 p.m.) in the second of back-to-back clashes.

Centre Owen Allard, out since Dec. 8 with an upper-body injury, and defenceman Spencer Evans, sidelined for over a month with upper-body trouble of his own, are expected back on Saturday.

Forwards Chris Brown (upper body) and Sam Bowness (charley horse) remain out.

Greyhounds head coach John Dean refuses to use injuries as a reason for his club’s recent struggles – nine losses in 12 starts – or its current 15-18-0-0 record.

Instead, following seven days without a game over the Christmas break, Dean spoke of “mindset” as being critical to the Hounds second half.

“We teach a brand of hockey that aggressively takes away time and space,” the coach began. “But if one or two guys on a unit aren’t on the same page as everyone else, it’s really difficult to operate successfully.”

In other words, scoring chances for the opposition can multiply.

Dean also spoke of how some Hounds players continue trying to do too much.

Such an approach leads to mistakes.

“Sometimes, we take chances we shouldn’t be taking,” he said. “Too often, the decisions we make are gambles that we might get an opportunity to score. And they’re really costing us dearly.”

Dean went on to explain how “the mindset we need to have involves what decision can we make to make sure the puck doesn’t go into our net.”

The Hounds, he added, need to be a team where all five skaters have to be in sync.

Veteran winger Justin Cloutier (17-14-31) says he sees the second half of the season as an opportunity for the Greyhounds to get things turned around.

He spoke of how the learning curve for the club’s first-year players is shortening.

“They’re getting used to the systems,” Cloutier added. “But in the second half we need to be better structurally and we need to expect more of ourselves.”

The Ottawa native also talked of how the Soo’s special teams must take a step forward and how consistency – in all areas – is critical.

“We have to cut down on turnovers and when we do lose the puck, we have to win our 50-50 battles,” Cloutier added. “In our last few games, we’ve been on the wrong side of our 50-50s.”

Dean stressed the importance of his charges regaining a strong foundation, one that includes tracking, getting above pucks, puck management and proper shift management.

And he again touched on play without the puck.

“We’re going to turn this into a winning season by focusing on keeping the puck out of our net, and not by gambling on how we can get pucks into the opposition’s net.”

Windsor, a club with an outstanding forward group, enters weekend play with a 23-7-2-1 record, the same mark as Kitchener and tied for second behind London (27-6-0-0) in the OHL’s overall standings.