Curtain about to rise on new season
by Peter Ruicci (Independent Media) | Photo by Bob Davies
Soo Greyhounds are getting a personnel boost heading into their Ontario Hockey League regular season opener.
Five of the seven players who were away at NHL rookie camps have returned to the fold, and four will be in the lineup for tonight’s 7:07 p.m. clash with the Saginaw Spirit at GFL Memorial Gardens.
The group includes Colin Fitzgerald (St. Louis Blues), Travis Hayes (Pittsburgh Penguins), Quinn McKenzie (New Jersey Devils) and Doman Szongoth (Buffalo Sabres).
Jordan Charron (Pittsburgh) is also back, but must serve a one-game suspension for being the third man in a fight during a Sept. 5 exhibition game against Windsor. He’s expected to suit up for Saturday’s 7:07 p.m. home start against Sarnia.
Another vet, defenceman Jakub Winkelhofer, is also back and will suit up for Game 1. He returned to the Sault last weekend after completing academic testing in Czechia.
Meantime, two Greyhounds remain with their NHL teams and are headed to main camps. Defenceman Harris Pangretitsch is with the Ottawa Senators while rearguard Callum Croskery is moving forward with the Columbus Blue Jackets.
“I’m so pumped,” second-year winger Noah Laus said while getting ready for opening night. “I’m excited by the fans and the atmosphere on opening night. It’s electric.”
The club’s first-round draft choice (seventh overall) in the 2025 Priority Selections, the six-foot-one, 200-pound Laus spoke of the confidence he has in this year’s team.
Asked about facing a club coached by former Hounds assistant Brendan Taylor, Laus chuckled.
“It’ll be fun,” he said. “Hopefully, we can beat him.”
Taylor was hired as Spirit bench boss after Chris Lazary took a job as the associate head coach at the University of Michigan.
Meantime, new head coach Drew Bannister, who succeeded John Dean behind the bench, spoke of how his opening night message to the Hounds involves starting fast.
“Make sure we get off to a good start,” said Bannister, who previously spent three seasons as the Hounds head coach beginning in 2015. “Our first periods in the exhibition games haven’t been really good. We certainly want to be ready once the puck drops.”
The coach talked about how the Soo players will be introduced to the fans prior to faceoff and how that can serve as an interruption to their typical routine.
“But we need to minimize the distractions and make sure we’re ready to go,” he said. “As a coach you can’t manage individual preparation. The players have to come to the rink and do that themselves.”
What Bannister wants to see against Saginaw is effective management of the puck. He talked about how the Spirit has some higher-end forwards and defencemen, who feed off of turnovers at both blue-lines.
“We’re going to have to make good decisions with the puck and limit their time and space,” he added. “In the preseason, we gave up too much off the rush.”
Overage Landon Miller is expected to start in goal tonight. The other netminders on the club’s roster are first-year players William Camputaro and David Vermirovsky.
When asked, Bannister said he’s in no hurry to name a captain, preferring to wait until everyone is back from pro camp.
He expects the Hounds to skate with a captain tonight, but as of late Thursday afternoon had not decided who that would be.
“I have an idea in what direction we’re going to go for the opener,” he said.
Bannister added that he and general manager Kyle Raftis will discuss options this morning before reaching a final decision. He also said fans and media should not read too much into tonight’s selection.
“By no means is that the final decision as to who the captain is for the season,” the coach said.
For overage centre Chris Brown, this marks five opening nights in his OHL career.
“Everyone’s excited,” he said, while discussing the thoughts of he and his teammates. “We’ve talked about how great the fans are and the atmosphere. We’re big rivals with Saginaw and I think everybody is excited to see what kind of team we are.”
Which led to an obvious question.
Brown was asked to assess the quality of the 2026-27 Greyhounds.
“I think we’re super deep,” he began. “I think we can play in a ton of different ways. We can play with skill, we can play hard, get pucks deep, put body on body. But we can also use our skill to make plays. And we know how to work hard and grind other teams down.”
