Confident Hounds would love to swarm Knights
by Peter Ruicci (Independent Media) | Photo by Bob Davies
Brady Smith has a winning plan for the Soo Greyhounds.
But does it involve a little sleight of hand or illusion?
Not really.
“We need to make the other team feel like there’s six guys on the ice for us at all times,” said the second-year centre, when asked about the way for the Hounds to find playoff success.
Swarming their opponent is one of the Soo’s goals going into a best-of-seven, Western Conference quarter-final against the London Knights.
“I’m sensing a lot of excitement from our group. This week has been full of energy and positivity,” said head coach John Dean. “We have an extremely-motivated group.”
Game 1 is set for Friday (7 p.m.) and Game 2 goes Sunday (6 p.m.) at Canada Life Place in London. The series shifts to GFL Memorial Gardens for games next Tuesday (8:07 p.m.) and Wednesday (7:07 p.m.).
The Knights (40-23-4-1) finished fourth in the Western Conference, one point ahead of the fifth-place Greyhounds (39-23-1-5), who battled through an injury-riddled campaign. London also won three of four head-to-head games, with two of the victories coming in shootouts.
Dean also spoke of how confident his players are. Despite the fact the Hounds struggled down the stretch in the regular season, the coach talked about how much he likes the Soo’s chances to defeat London.
“Just to be clear, we like our team’s chances against every single team we might face,” Dean continued. “This is not unique to London. We like our team and we’re very confident in our group.”
Smith spoke of how he feels the same way.
“If we play Hounds hockey for seven games, I don’t think we lose a series. Any series,” Smith said. “We have a great team and we’re super ready.”
Asked what playing ‘Hounds hockey’ entails, the Arthur, Ont., native talked about playing a relentless style, getting pucks to the blue paint, tracking hard defensively and keeping the puck in the opponent’s end of the ice.
For a team that has had its ups and downs, Dean stressed the importance of consistency.
“We have to hammer the nail,” he added, while heaping praise on a Knights team that comes in as defending OHL and Memorial Cup champions.
And in a re-tooling season, London, which dealt standout Sam O’Reilly, along with Ben Wilmott and Jared Woolley prior to the trade deadline, has remained strong.
“They’re a very consistent hockey club,” Dean said. “They’re very structured and they’re definitely not going to beat themselves. So we have to make sure that every night, every shift, for 60 minutes we play our way and don’t beat ourselves.”
And that, Dean agreed, means limiting the pesky turnovers which have hurt this club.
The Soo closed the regular season with four losses over its last five games.
Asked about the sub-par finish, Dean dismissed it.
“We’ve not even thought about it. It hasn’t been a discussion point,” he said. “We’re just excited for playoffs.”
Captain Brady Martin (shoulder injury) now has 10 straight games under his belt after missing much of the second half of the season.
The veteran centre admitted this week he hasn’t been his old self, but believes he’ll soon return to the form that had him start the season with the NHL’s Nashville Predators.
Dean agrees.
“His conditioning has come back, his physicality has come back and he’s a big-game player,” the coach said. “He likes to thrive in stressful environments. He’s built differently than most young players.”
The absence of star defenceman Chase Reid (upper-body injury) has also played a significant role in the club’s second-half inconsistency. But Reid got into the final three games of the regular campaign and Dean believes he’s also ready to return to form.
“He’s shaken off the rust for sure,” Dean said. “Chase is the best defenceman in the league and these are the kind of situations he thrives in. We saw that at World Juniors and I’m sure we’ll see it again over the playoff run.”
Martin, Reid, goalie Carter George, Marco Mignosa, Lukas Fischer and Jeremy Martin are among those the Greyhounds will count on heavily.
But they’ll also require an uptick in secondary scoring, an area that too often has come up dry.
And the job won’t be easy against 20-year-old (2006 birth year), London netminder Sebastian Gatto, who has blossomed in his first OHL season.
“We think we’re facing an extremely-formidable opponent in the London Knights,” Dean said. “But we believe if we play our best, consistently, over the course of this series, we have a really-good chance of winning.”
Notes:
The Hounds are healthy with the exception of London native Brodie McConnell-Barker, who remains out with an unspecified illness.
London forward Jesse Nurmi is listed as day to day with an upper-body injury.
The Knights will be without forward Brody Cook, serving the fifth-and-final game of a league-imposed suspension on Friday.
Meantime, if a fifth game is needed, it’s set for Apr. 3 (7 p.m.) in London. A sixth game would be played Apr. 5 (7:07 p.m.) in the Sault. And should the series go the distance, the deciding tilt would be played on Apr. 7 (7 p.m.) at Canada Life Place.
