Hounds hold off late Battalion charge
by Peter Ruicci (Independent Media) | Photo by Bob Davies
FULL PHOTO GALLERY | GAME HIGHLIGHTS | GAME CENTRE
Saturday’s assessment was short and to the point.
It was delivered with both a sense of satisfaction, and a realization that a lot of work lies ahead.
“As a group, I thought this was probably the best game we’ve played out of all four,” said Soo Greyhounds head coach Drew Bannister, minutes after his club held on for a 5-4 victory over the North Bay Battalion in front of 3,220 at GFL Memorial Gardens. “We had a group of guys pulling in the right direction on the same rope.”
“We showed a lot of character,” added veteran centre Brady Smith, whose short-handed goal at 3:08 of the third period stood up as the winner, boosting the Soo to 3-1-0-0 on the young season. “That’s something to build on for sure. This was like a playoff game tonight with high intensity.”
Leading 5-4 late in the contest, the Hounds displayed a gritty, aggressive, defensively-responsible approach.
They denied North Bay an opportunity to pull its goalie until the final 30 seconds.
“I thought we were awesome,” said winger Noah Laus, who joined Smith in pacing the Soo attack with a goal and an assist each. “We figured out how to close out the game. We showed good teamwork at the end and a lot of character.”
Despite winning 6-3 against Brampton on Friday here, Bannister wasn’t pleased with how his players performed while protecting a 5-1 lead.
That wasn’t the case 24 hours later, as the Hounds completed a two-for-two weekend, heading into a Friday road game in Sarnia (7:05 p.m.).
Bannister spoke of how “yesterday, I thought we were a little bit selfish” when trying to close out the game. “But tonight, we showed selflessness, where guys weren’t looking to score goals. They just wanted to kill time.”
And that, the coach added, is “winning hockey. That’s how we have to play consistently.”
After losing overage defenceman Spencer Evans to an upper-body injury in the second period, the Soo’s remaining five rearguards responded beautifully.
The group of Callum Croskery, Jakub Winkelhofer, Lukas Moore, Charlie Ashcroft and Christopher Weiss shone.
“They got pucks out for us and did a great job,” Smith offered.
“They had to step up and play a lot of minutes and I thought our guys kept things simple – something we didn’t do for the first 15 minutes of the game,” added Bannister.
With the home team leading 4-3 early in the third period, Battalion netminder Mike McIvor made a costly miscue. With his club on the powerplay, the overage attempted to feed the puck ahead to his attackers.
However, he instead put it on the stick of Smith in the neutral zone. The Arthur, Ont., native skated in alone and fired from the top of the right circle.
Smith went high to the glove side for his first goal of the season and a 5-3 Greyhounds lead.
“He fanned on it and it went right to me,” Smith explained. “I went in, saw the far side and put it there. It’s definitely a good feeling.”
Smith agreed short-handed goals are special.
The Hounds would need it as rookie netminder William Camputaro, making his OHL debut, returned the favour four minutes later.
Straying from his net to move the puck up the boards, Camputaro put it on the stick of Kam Hodgson. He fired from a bad angle, scoring his second goal on the short side to make it 5-4 at the 7:23 mark.
But the Battalion, now 2-2-0-0, was unable to tie it.
“I liked our effort, but we made some big blunders they capitalized on,” said North Bay head coach Ryan Oulahen, whose club held a 32-27 edge in shots. “This was a game of mistakes. But our start was outstanding and McIvor kept us in it.”
The Hounds were surely sloppy in their own zone on the first North Bay goal.
After Camputaro made a series of saves, Hodgson finally deposited the rebound at 8:40 of the opening period.
Ryan Kaczynski, with his sixth of the season from a bad angle, tied the game less than two minutes later.
At 12:41, Max Crete put a rebound past Camputaro to give the visitors a 2-1 lead.
Rookie Cam Anderson, in his first OHL contest, tied the game at 5:14 of the middle stanza. The Lake Villa, Ill., native scored on a rebound attempt.
The six-foot-four, 221-pounder drew praise from Bannister who thought he was “outstanding.”
At the 12:01 mark, Quinn McKenzie took advantage of hard work by Laus to make it 3-2 on a one-timer.
Shamar Moses tied the game with a power-play tally before Laus snapped one high to the glove side for his fifth goal of the season.
That made it 4-3 Hounds heading into the final period.
“There are still a lot of things we need to get better at,” Bannister noted. “We have to stay out of the box.”
Asked about Camputaro, battling overage Landon Miller and fellow rookie David Vermirovsky for a roster spot, the coach was philosophical.
“There were parts of the game where we’d like him to be better. But I thought he made some difficult saves,” Bannister began. “And when it came down to the end of the game, he was solid for us.”
Notes:
The coach said he had little information to pass on when it came to Evans, who was hurt after completing a body check.
“We’ll see how he is on Monday,” Bannister said.
Forward Chris Brown missed the game with a painful lower-body bruise. He left in the second period on Friday night and didn’t return.
Following the game in Sarnia this Friday, the Hounds complete their trip with a clash in Flint on Saturday (7 p.m.).
