Hounds blow lead, lose to Gens in OT
by Peter Ruicci (Independent Media) | Photo by Bob Davies
They were seven seconds John Dean would surely like to wipe from his memory.
“I’m extremely disappointed,” said the Soo Greyhounds head coach, minutes after suffering a stunning setback.
Calum Ritchie scored at just :07 of overtime on Friday, giving the Oshawa Generals a come-from-behind 4-3 victory over the Hounds in front of 4,255 at GFL Memorial Gardens.
“Two guys missed assignments on the draw and we don’t get a save,” lamented Dean, whose team dropped a point to first-place Saginaw in the West Division race.
A costly turnover helped Oshawa tie the score 3-3 with 2:34 left in regulation. As much as that hurt, the short-lived overtime was like a punch in the nose.
Ritchie won the draw from Bryce McConnell-Barker and fed Beckett Sennecke on a 2-on-1, with only defenceman Kirill Kudryavtsev back.
Sennecke returned the pass and Ritchie made a right-to-left move on Charlie Schenkel, scoring high to the glove side.
“I thought Bryce had won the draw, but the guy (Ritchie) jumped by both of us,” said right-winger Gavin Hayes, who was also on the ice. “And their two guys made a nice play on Kirill. It was just unlucky, but we have to limit those mistakes.”
Overage winger Jack Beck talked of the need to close games like this out.
With the OT loss, the Soo fell to 38-16-3-1, five points back of the first-place Spirit in the West Division race.
Saginaw rallied from a 3-1 deficit and stopped Brantford 4-3 in overtime to improve to 42-15-0-1. Both the Hounds and Spirit have 10 regular season games remaining.
“I’m very disappointed,” said Beck, who finished with a goal and an assist and was waiting to go out with Owen Allard as part of the Soo’s next OT forward pairing. “When you see it go in, it feels like ‘What just happened? You’re almost speechless.’”
Beck went on to explain how “two good players came down on the best defenceman in the league. Kirill is so special, he really is.”
Generals head coach Derek Laxdal didn’t like the way his team started off on Friday, getting roundly outplayed, while being outshot 18-7 in the opening period.
However, the Gens got better as the night went on and overtime provided them with a much-needed two points.
“It was a 50-50 face-off. We pushed forward and got a little break jumping out on a 2-on-1,” said Laxdal, whose club improved to 31-19-7-2 in the chase for top spot in the Eastern Conference. “Our guys made a great play on that D-man to win it.”
The Hounds held a 3-2 lead late in the third when Jordan D’Intino’s turnover wound up on the stick of Rasmus Kumpulainen. He skated into the left circle and beat Schenkel high to the stick side at 17:26.
That goal served as an illustration of the Soo’s sloppy play in the final frame – especially in the defensive zone.
“Our guys did a great job forechecking and putting their D under duress,” said Laxdal.
“On the game-tying goal and the overtime goal, our leaders need to be our leaders,” said Dean. “Tonight, there were a handful of individuals who really let us down.”
Hayes said he and his teammates have things to clean up, prior to Sunday’s 2:07 p.m. home start against Sarnia.
“We worked so hard for 50 minutes, it hurts,” added Hayes, who led his team offensively with a two-goal, one-assist performance. “It was a game we needed to win, for sure.”
Hayes, on a slick feed from Beck, opened the scoring with a power-play marker just 4:06 in.
After a Brodie McConnell-Barker miscue, Dylan Roobroeck converted a 2-on-1 by banging home a rebound at 16:45.
Gens goalie Noah Bender failed to cover the puck, allowing Hayes to notch his 34th of the season at 5:12 of the middle frame.
Just 1:32 later, Ritchie shovelled home a rebound to tie the score 2-2.
An ill-advised clearing attempt by Connor Punnett wound up on Hayes’s stick, and the veteran fed Beck, who’s one-timer gave the home side a 3-2 lead at 7:35.
That set the stage for the third period and overtime as Oshawa won for the first time this season (1-14-3-1) when trailing after two periods.
“We had a great first 30 minutes,” said Dean, whose club outshot the visitors 35-29. “I really liked our pace of play. . . against a team that plays an excellent, neutral-zone trap. But the second half of the game completely got away from us. We were over-handling pucks in our D-zone.”
Dean said the Gens out-competed his charges over the second half of the game.
A big reason why, the coach added, was the absence of rearguard Caeden Carlisle. The Mississauga native left when assessed a match penalty for cross-checking at 16:38 of the second period.
“Caeden is a huge piece of our team and an undisciplined penalty cost us,” the coach added.
Following an OHL review, Carlisle faces possible supplemental punishment.
Notes:
The Soo played without injured wingers Travis Hayes and Marco Mignosa, both out with upper-body injuries. Hayes won’t play Sunday and Mignosa is unlikely to return.
