Hounds ‘completely flat’ in Kitchener
by Peter Ruicci (Independent Media) | Photo courtesy of Kitchener Rangers
GAME HIGHLIGHTS
A disappointed Marco Mignosa summed up the Soo Greyhounds second straight sub-par performance with one simple word: “Awful.”
The Hounds struggled from beginning to end on Friday, dropping a 4-0 decision to the Kitchener Rangers in front of 6,861 at the Memorial Auditorium.
“We came out completely flat and didn’t match their intensity at all,” said Mignosa, a veteran winger whose club was seeking a bounce-back following a very poor showing in a 5-1 home-ice loss to London on Wednesday.
The Knights outshot the home side 43-13 that night.
“We should have had a response after a difficult London game,” lamented head coach John Dean, who spoke of how every team lays an egg on occasion. “But it’s not okay to have two off nights in a row. The whole game was not good. Powerplay, penalty-killing, five-on-five, it just wasn’t good.”
“It sucks to lose this game playing the way we did,” added Mignosa, whose team was the victim of self-inflicted errors on a night when the home team held a 32-20 edge in shots. “We wanted to wash away that London game and come out in Kitchener to prove a point. But that game was unacceptable.”
That marks six straight periods in which the Greyhounds have failed to register at least 10 shots.
Dean, whose team fell to 9-8-0-0 heading into Saturday’s 7 p.m. clash in Flint, spoke of the importance of team identity, effort and compete level.
“Those are critical things you need to see on a regular basis,” the coach added. “But it’s pretty clear, we definitely look like a team that lacks confidence. And we’re not willing to do the things we need to do to get our swagger back.”
The home side opened the scoring just 2:19 in and the circumstances surrounding the goal were a harbinger of things to come. Matt Andonovski was allowed to skate in absolutely untouched.
The Kitchener defenceman fired from the right circle and beat Landon Miller high to the blocker side.
The Rangers also scored early in the middle frame, this time on the power play. Adrian Misaljevic found Luca Romano in the left circle and his shot beat Miller on the short side to make it 2-0 at 1:15. It was a goal Miller would surely like back.
Four minutes later, Miller wandered from his net and the result was another power-play goal for Kitchener. The Hounds goalie came out to play the puck behind the net, but turned it over in front. Trent Swick had a gaping cage and he made no mistake to make it 3-0.
That spelled the end of Miller’s night. He was replaced by Charlie Schenkel, who made a number of quality saves to keep the score close.
The Soo had a chance to get back into the game early in the third. But a 5-on-3 power play for 59 seconds failed to produce.
Kitchener extended its lead midway through the third when Andrew Vermeulen beat Schenkel on the blocker side to cap the scoring.
Jackson Parsons posted his fifth career shutout as the Rangers ran their hot streak to 13-0-1-1. They’re 13-2-1-1 on the season, having lost 5-4 to the Soo in a shootout on Oct. 11 at GFL Memorial Gardens.
Discipline was also an issue for the Hounds who took some ill-advised penalties on Friday.
“We want to play hard, but we don’t need to take silly penalties that don’t display toughness at all,” Dean said. “They display the opposite.”
“We have to respond better than that,” added Mignosa, who talked of the importance of taking aspects of how the Knights and Rangers compete and learning from them. “But we play again in 24 hours, so we have to move on.”
Asked about his plans for the Flint contest, Dean talked about how his players will know “whoever is playing well is going to get opportunities to play. If I have to shorten the bench to two lines, I’ll do it.”
Notes:
Centre Owen Allard suffered an upper-body injury in the London clash and didn’t make the trip. Though he doesn’t believe the injury to be serious, the Soo coach said he wasn’t yet sure how long the overage would be sidelined.
