Greyhounds seek road prosperity
by Peter Ruicci (Independent Media) | Photo by Bob Davies
Following Sunday’s impressive 6-3 victory over the London Knights at GFL Memorial Gardens, Soo Greyhounds head coach John Dean proudly made mention of how well his club had played of late on home ice.
With a nod to the fact his charges grabbed five of a possible six points in recent days, Dean spoke of the importance of taking the recent home ice success on the road.
“Our next challenge is trying to find out how to replicate these home games on the road,” said Dean, whose club stopped Kitchener 5-4 last Wednesday, before dropping a 6-5 overtime decision to Flint two days later.
Such a test is set to begin on Thursday, when the Soo begins a three-game road trip in North Bay (7 p.m.).
“We’re going to talk about changing our routine a bit,” Dean said during a Tuesday afternoon interview.
Even now, the Hounds try to do all they can to match life on the road with their typical routine while playing at home.
“But maybe there are some things related to travel we can potentially take out to lighten the load on our guys,” Dean added.
The idea, he continued, is to ice a fresher group of players on the road.
“We pre-game skate every game and practice on our off days on the road,” the coach explained. “There’s some thought to maybe turning that practice day into a day when our players just stretch. And maybe we’ll limit our pre-game skate to include only players who played minimum minutes or who didn’t dress the game before.”
Consistency, Dean added, remains the goal for a team battling for a Western Conference playoff spot.
With a 12-14-7-4 record, the Soo enters Wednesday’s action tied with Guelph (15-18-4-1) for seventh place. The Hounds also have a game in hand.
(click here for Western Conference standings)
The Storm is slated to visit Hamilton on Wednesday night.
Kitchener (15-17-2-0) is ninth in the conference, three points behind the Soo, but with three games in hand.
“We get away from our structure at times,” Dean said, when asked about specific areas requiring more consistency. “When we’re structurally sound, we’re a very good hockey club.”
However, the coach went on to explain how his team “has games where we get on the wrong side of the puck and we start cheating a bit to the offensive side. And we’re a team that simply can’t afford to do that.”
Dean also discussed the importance of being more consistent when it comes to execution.
“And also in our swagger,” he quickly added. “That’s the belief in what we can do as a group and offensively. We’ve seen that swagger fluctuate over the course of the season.”
However, right now the Soo’s confidence level appears to be in a good place.
Dean was impressed by the way in which his players stayed above the puck against the Knights. That commitment helped generate scoring chances, something the coach feels provides a good lesson moving forward.
“Beating London was huge, and for sure it makes us excited to get back onto the ice,” said overage winger Kalvyn Watson, the club’s second-leading scorer with a 17-20-37 stat line in 37 games. “Any time you can beat a team like London and play the way we played, it’s exciting to come to the rink with that winning feeling.”
The Peterborough native scored a key goal in Sunday’s win. After the Hounds rallied from a 3-1 deficit to take a 4-3 lead in the third period, Watson motored down the right wing and barely got the puck past Knights goalie Brett Brochu, who came out of his net to clear it.
Watson hunted down the puck and deposited it into the London goal to give his team a 5-3 advantage.
As he talked about his squad’s hard work and intensity, Dean said Watson’s goal “sums up the day.”
“We were relentless as a group. We didn’t get down, we didn’t quit,” Watson said of his team’s most-recent performance. “For sure, we showed ourselves something we can move forward with.”
Following the North Bay game, the Hounds are scheduled to visit Barrie (7:30 p.m.) on Saturday and Sudbury (2:05 p.m.) on Sunday.
Asked about his plans for newly acquired winger Julian Fantino, Dean said he’ll “definitely get a chance to play on a line with Bryce (McConnell-Barker) and Dewey (Mark Duarte) at some point. I’m just not sure what it’ll look like for Game 1. But we plan to give him every opportunity to succeed here.”
The 18-year-old (2004 birth year) player was acquired from Owen Sound on Monday for 18-year-old (2004) winger Landen Hookey.
Questioned as to whether his players will relax a little now that the trade deadline has passed, Dean said he didn’t think Soo players were “bothered too much” by pre-deadline stress.
Meantime, goaltender Charlie Schenkel (upper body injury) is still not ready to return. The Ottawa native, who’s been out since late November, won’t be with the club on the road trip.
Second-year man Samuel Ivanov has started 14 straight in Schenkel’s absence.
