Greyhounds miss chance to gain ground
by Peter Ruicci (Independent Media) | Photos by Bob Davies
FULL PHOTO GALLERY | GAME HIGHLIGHTS | GAME CENTRE
With his team trailing 1-0, Jordan Charron banged away twice from the doorstep.
At that instant, with 1:16 remaining on Saturday and Carter George on the bench for a sixth attacker, the Soo Greyhounds winger anticipated tying the game.
But as part of a brilliant performance, Zachary Jovanovski stopped both attempts, leading the Guelph Storm to a 1-0 victory in front of 3,642 at GFL Memorial Gardens.
“Obviously, I thought I was going to score,” said Charron, a 23-goal man mired in a frustrating slump. “I thought the goalie just played it well.”
The Ayr, Ont., native’s first chance was on the forehand at the side of the goal, before grabbing his own rebound and trying to jam the puck home on the backhand.
“Those chances, you kind of think about them at night,” said Charron, a physical Pittsburgh Penguins prospect. “I just have to bear down next time.”
Charron’s experience was typical of what the Hounds faced, on a night when they fired 19 shots at the Guelph netminder in the final frame. The Soo outshot the visitors 38-32 overall.
“Jovanovski was great,” said Hounds head coach John Dean, whose team fell to 34-17-1-5 heading into Wednesday’s 7:05 p.m. clash in Sudbury. “But their team played a good team game as well.”
Jovanovski “was the star of the game, that’s for sure,” said Storm head coach Cory Stillman, whose club has beaten the Hounds twice in three tries this season and now improves to 25-26-2-2. “We’re learning how to play. We’re a young team and tonight was a perfect example of what our guys can do.”
A power-play goal by Tyler Hopkins, at 10:08 of the final period, stood up as the winner. Wil McFadden made a slick, cross-ice feed and Hopkins one-timer from the right circle beat Carter George high to the stick side.
George was also a standout on this night.
Because of their aspirations in the Western Conference, this was the kind of loss the Hounds can’t easily wash off in the shower.
“That’s a big, big two points we missed out on tonight,” Dean offered. “At this time of year, when teams are lower than you in the standings, you have to cash in.”
Meantime, with a 3-1 victory over Erie, Kitchener (39-12-4-2) improves to 84 points, four better than Flint (37-14-4-2), a 6-5 overtime loser to Sudbury on home ice on Saturday.
In third place, idle Windsor (36-13-5-2) has 79 points and a game in hand on the Greyhounds, who have 74 and 11 regular season games remaining.
With a victory on Saturday, the Soo could have crept to within three points of the Spits. The clubs have two, head-to-head games still to play.
The fourth-place Hounds are five points ahead of fifth-place London (32-19-4-1). The Knights have 12 games left on their schedule.
Dean said he thought his club battled, but also spoke of how “that wasn’t an amazing game for us. I don’t know if we deserved to win the hockey game, but it would have been nice to see an overtime.”
“It’s disappointing, it’s a tough game to lose,” added first-year defenceman Harris Pangretitsch. “You want to come away with that one.”
Dean lamented the Greyhounds getting beaten to their end of the ice too often.
“That makes for way too much D-zone time,” Dean added. “We still make some extremely immature mistakes. You want to end plays at the red-line and blue-line. At this level, returning to your own zone in an organized fashion is one of the most-difficult things to teach.”
The coach said he thought his defensive corps was significantly better than it was 24 hours earlier, in a 6-3 win over Sarnia.
“But there’s still a lot of room for improvement,” he added.
Pangretitsch agreed.
“We need to improve on puck retrievals. That’s a big part of the game,” he said.
Dean also spoke of the need for his club to get more secondary scoring.
It’s no secret Marco Mignosa has been carrying the team offensively. In the eight games prior to Saturday’s setback, Mignosa had produced 10 goals and 10 assists.
“We need other guys to score, bottom line,” the coach began.
Dean said he thought the Hounds generated a sufficient number of quality scoring chances against the Storm.
“But we have to bear down. Someone’s got to step up. It can’t be Marco Mignosa every night.”
