Brown’s big night boosts Hounds
by Peter Ruicci (Independent Media) | Photo by Bob Davies
PHOTO GALLERY | GAME HIGHLIGHTS
Christopher Brown had never enjoyed a three-point game in the OHL.
Wednesday, while playing a starring role for the Soo Greyhounds, the Toronto native had four.
“Best player on the ice,” said Hounds head coach John Dean, whose club erased a 2-0 deficit and stopped the Saginaw Spirit 5-2 in front of an announced crowd of 3,096 at GFL Memorial Gardens.
Dean lauded Brown, who finished with a goal and three assists, calling him “one of the more dynamic puck transporters in the league. He has a high, high IQ, with and without the puck.”
Asked if this was his best game since the Hounds chose him in the first round (16th overall) in the 2022 OHL draft, Brown answered quickly.
“I think it’s up there,” said the 19-year-old (2006 birth year) centre, who boosted his early-season stat line to 3-7-10 with a plus-minus of plus-3. “Besides the points tonight, I played really hard and won a lot of battles. I think I did a lot of good things to help the team win.”
Brown, 4-4-8 in 29 games, went through an injury-riddled 2024-2025 campaign.
Though he’s grown an inch and added 10 pounds to what is now a six-feet, 185-pound frame, Brown’s biggest challenge remains the physical part of the game.
“His No. 1 issue is winning his 50-50 battles,” said Dean, whose club improved to 7-4-0-0 heading into back-to-back weekend games against Sudbury.
“I’m not the biggest guy, so I have to know what my strengths are,” said Brown, who scored the tying goal on Wednesday and assisted on Marco Mignosa’s power-play winner that put the Hounds ahead 3-2.
The veteran centre spoke of how he must use his stick and body position to make up for his limited size.
“He’s a hell of a player,” defenceman Chase Reid, who contributed three assists, said of Brown. “His game speaks for itself.”
Down 2-0 in the second period, Brown made a slick feed to spring Jordan Charron in alone on Saginaw goalie Stepan Shurygin. Charron went low glove-hand side for his ninth goal of the season at the 8:58 mark.
Just 86-seconds later, Reid’s beautiful stretch pass sent Brown in on Shurygin.
“I went forehand-backhand-forehand-backhand,” he said of a move that ended with a shot through the five hole and a 2-2 tie.
“Only a few people would try to pull that five-hole goal off,” said Dean, who credited Brown’s poise.
Three minutes later, with the home team skating 5-on-3, Mignosa displayed patience. The overage star eluded one defender before firing a shot past Shurygin on the stick side.
With the score 3-2 midway through the third, Noah Laus sent Travis Hayes away. The veteran winger lifted a backhand shot home on the short side to give his team a 4-2 advantage.
Shorthanded, with Saginaw throwing six skaters at them late, the Hounds iced it on a Quinn McKenzie empty-net goal.
“We were persistent,” said Dean, who liked most of his club’s performance, sans the first half of the second period.
On a night when they beat a steady stream to the penalty box, the Spirit got goals from Jacob Cloutier in the first period and Egor Barabanov at 7:29 of the second.
The loss dropped the visitors to 2-3-3-1.
Hounds netminder Landon Miller lost his skate blade on the 2-0 goal. The Hounds defensive-zone coverage was poor on both Spirit tallies.
In the Sept. 19 season opener, Saginaw scored five unanswered goals to stop the Soo Greyhounds 5-3.
Flipping the script on the Spirit “felt very good,” said Reid, whose club held a 33-27 edge in shots on Wednesday. “We were hungrier than normal. We gave up that three-goal lead on opening night and we were determined to beat them tonight.”
Dean spoke of how he liked his team’s penalty-killing as Saginaw finished 0-for-4 with the man advantage.
The Hounds were 1-for-8.
“And after the second goal, Miller stepped up in a big way,” added the Soo coach, whose team is set to visit Sudbury on Friday (7:05 p.m.) before playing host to the Wolves on Saturday (7:07 p.m.).
Mignosa was among the Soo’s standouts, while contributing a goal and an assist.
Notes:
After delivering a cheap shot to Hounds defenceman Jakub Winkelhofer in last Friday’s 5-4 overtime win over Kitchener, Matt Hlacar received a six-game suspension from the OHL on Wednesday.
Following the hit on Winkelhofer, Hlacar was assessed a five-minute match penalty for blindsiding. Winkelhofer missed the Hounds next game, a 4-1 loss to Windsor, with an upper-body injury. But returned to the lineup on Wednesday.
The Soo is down to two netminders. Third-stringer William Camputaro was in the process of being reassigned on Wednesday. The 17-year-old (2008 birth year) native of North York, Ont., was selected by the Greyhounds in the fourth round of the 2024 OHL draft.
