Hounds blow lead, suffer ‘hardest loss to take’ this season
by Peter Ruicci (Independent Media) | Photo by Bob Davies
FULL PHOTO GALLERY | GAME HIGHLIGHTS
The look on the face of Marco Mignosa said all you needed to know on Sunday.
“This is the hardest loss to take this season. I’m frustrated. It sucks to lose this game,” said the Soo Greyhounds veteran winger, whose club continues its penchant for shaky third periods, which lead to blown shots at favourable results. “I don’t even have words to describe how this feels.”
After dominating the first 40 minutes, outshooting the Owen Sound Attack 24-4 after the first and 36-10 through two periods, the Hounds surrendered two goals in the final 10 minutes of regulation.
They wound up dropping a 4-3 overtime decision to the Attack in front of 3,781 at GFL Memorial Gardens.
In OT, after Justin Cloutier fired one off the cross-bar and Noel Nordh and Brady Martin couldn’t convert on a 2-on-0 breakaway, James Petrovski ended it.
At the 3:55 mark, from the top of the right circle, the Attack defenceman beat Landon Miller high to the glove side.
On a day when Owen Sound netminder Carter George was brilliant, like Mignosa, Hounds captain Caeden Carlisle wore a look of frustration.
“I’m just very disappointed with the circumstances and how we continue this pattern,” said Carlisle, whose club blew an opportunity to take four weekend points in head-to-head games against its two closest Western Conference rivals. “Our third period was pretty flat. We continue to lose our game as the game goes on.”
Mignosa spoke of how he and his teammates “need to bear down. We have to be better. We can’t lose that game.”
After rallying to defeat Guelph 4-3 in overtime on Friday, Sunday’s OT loss dropped the Hounds (22-32-2-1) into a tie with the Attack (20-30-4-3) for the conference’s eighth-and-final playoff berth.
Both teams have 11 regular season games remaining.
Idle on Sunday, Guelph (18-28-5-3) is three points back of both clubs, and also has three games in hand on both.
Seventh-place Sarnia (19-26-4-7) lost 5-1 to North Bay on Sunday and is two points ahead of both the Soo and Owen Sound. The Sting has 12 games remaining.
“It’s another blown lead and it’s difficult to swallow,” said head coach John Dean, whose club plays the next five on home ice, beginning with Tuesday’s 7:07 p.m. tilt with North Bay.
Sudbury is here on Wednesday night and the Soo entertains Brampton on Friday.
Seven of the Hounds final 11 are on home ice.
Asked what happened over the last 10 minutes of regulation, Dean spoke of how a “little bit of panic” set in.
“We started looking nervous with pucks in our own end. We started to throw pucks away and turn pucks over,” the coach lamented. “We need to learn our lesson. There’s no reason to panic and we’ll address it again.”
Asked if his club opted to play a trap for the latter half of the third, Dean said no.
“Not at all,” he continued. “When the puck finally got out of our zone and we’re on a change, we go into a trap, just like every other team.”
But those were the only times, the coach added
With the home side up 3-1 in the third, the Hounds failure to clear their zone led to the second Attack marker. Petrovski’s point shot appeared to hit a body in front, before eluding Miller on the glove side at 10:17.
Five minutes later, again the Soo was unable to clear the zone. Pierce Mbuyi was left all alone in the slot and he scored high glove side to tie the game.
While George made numerous big saves, the Hounds also missed chances – especially those that could have put the game away in regulation.
“We have to capitalize,” said Dean, whose club finished the game with a 42-27 shots advantage. “Breakaways, posts, cross-bars, empty nets on the backdoor. When you have that many opportunities, you have to score goals.”
While the victory for the Attack was surely a welcomed one, head coach Scott Wray found little else to be happy about.
“We were good for 10 minutes. That team over there was outstanding for 50,” Wray said of the Greyhounds. “It was insane how hard they came out. But once we finally got going, it was pretty exciting to see.”
Asked about George’s brilliance, Wray spoke of how “we owe that entire game and entire win to Carter George.”
On the power play, Lenny Greenberg snapped one home through traffic for the other Attack goal.
Brady R. Smith, Chris Brown, on a wrap-around, and Mignosa handled the Soo scoring. The Hounds were 0-for-6 on the power play.
Mignosa’s tally came off of a magnificent effort. The winger intercepted a clear at the Owen Sound blue-line, eluded one defender, walked another defender and beat George high to the glove side.
The goal was his team-leading 27th.
Carlisle said the team’s third period struggles are “easy to blame on how young we are. But we should have learned our lesson by now.”
