Hounds lose in Flint, can finish no higher than 4th
by Peter Ruicci (Independent Media) | Photos courtesy of Natalie Shaver (OHLImages)
FULL PHOTO GALLERY | GAME HIGHLIGHTS | GAME CENTRE
Taking 10 of 14 minor penalties, the Soo Greyhounds spent a lot of time in the penalty box on Friday.
But head coach John Dean disagreed when asked if his players showed a lack of discipline.
Instead, Dean spoke of how “to be honest, I loved our game. Our guys played really, really hard tonight.”
However, the Hounds didn’t get the result they were looking for, dropping a 5-2 decision to the Flint Firebirds in front of 3,858 at Dort Financial Center.
“The way we battled, how hard we played, I loved over pace of play, our o-zone pressure was fantastic,” continued Dean, whose club fell to 38-20-1-5, losing the opportunity to finish anywhere higher than fourth in the Western Conference. “If we play like this on a consistent basis, four out of seven (playoff) games looks good in our future against whoever we play.”
“I thought we played well,” added winger Jordan Charron, who broke a streak of 19 consecutive scoreless games by notching his 24th goal of the season. “We were hard to play against and we outshot them and outplayed them. We had each other’s backs, and if we bring that in the playoffs, it’s going to be a long run.”
With 82 points and four regular season games remaining, the best the Hounds could do is to tie third-place Windsor (41-15-6-2), a 6-3 winner over Sarnia on Friday. But the Spits own the first tie-breaker, with 38 regulation and overtime victories to just 33 for the Soo.
Second-place Flint (42-15-4-3) improved to 91 points, five back of first-place Kitchener (45-13-4-2), a 3-2 winner over Owen Sound.
Meantime, and more importantly, fifth-place London (38-21-4-1), a 4-3 winner over Guelph, moved to within a single point of the Soo.
Like the Hounds, the Knights have four games remaining and London holds the tie-breaker edge 35-33.
The fourth-place finisher earns home ice for the first round of the playoffs against the fifth-place team.
When asked about the disparity in penalties – Flint had seven powerplays to one for the Greyhounds – Dean talked of how “a lot of those calls should have been coincidentals. It’s tough to outshoot a team (32-26) and not have someone even-up the calls and powerplays. I don’t know why we got the short end of the stick tonight, but we did.”
On the Firebirds television broadcast, head coach Paul Flache admitted it wasn’t his team’s best performance.
“But good teams find a way to win games when they’re not at their best. We maybe dodged a bullet here,” he added. If the Greyhounds “would have stayed out of the box, they would have had a bigger push.”
Flache also spoke of how Brady Martin’s 10-minute misconduct for abuse of an official at the end of the second period, hurt the Hounds, who played Thursday night, beating Windsor 4-3 in overtime.
Asked about that penalty, Dean jumped to his captain’s defence.
Martin “was the best player on the ice tonight and it wasn’t even close. He questioned some calls and he did it without swearing. I was told (by the referee) he (Martin) did not swear or attack (the referee’s) character.”
Dean said Martin merely told the official he was very disappointed the Hounds were shorthanded at the end of the second period.
The officials “thought he was complaining too much,” the Soo coach added. “If that’s reason for a 10, I support my captain all day, every day. If he showed some emotion after a tough call, I support my player.”
Flint’s Nathan Aspinall opened the scoring 6:31 in, beating Landon Miller high to the stick side.
Six minutes later, with the home side on a powerplay, Miller came out to play the puck and got caught. Former Hounds winger Brady Smith deposited a rebound from a bad angle to make it 2-0.
After Miler had made a series of big stops earlier in the game, Kevin Hee notched a short-handed tally at 8:13 of the final frame. He outraced Callum Croskery for the puck and slipped it home through the five-hole.
Just 22 seconds later, Lukas Fischer scored a power-play tally from the high slot to trim Flint’s lead to 3-1.
Three minutes after that, Jimmy Lombardi’s power-play, one-timer made it 4-1.
Cruising in front, Charron redirected a Chris Brown shot past Mason Vaccari to trim the Soo’s deficit to 4-2 at 14:26 of the third.
“That’s a lot of weight off my shoulders,” said Charron, who, prior to Friday, hadn’t scored since Jan. 24. “Hopefully, I can keep it going.”
“I’m super happy for him,” Dean said. “Hopefully that means the barn door is going to open for him and he’ll get some of his confidence back.”
Aspinall, who finished with two goals and an assist, capped the scoring with an empty-net tally. Chris Thibodeau was a standout with three assists while both Lombardi and He notched a goal and an assist each.
Brown finished with a pair of assists for the Greyhounds, who return home to entertain Brantford on Sunday (2:07 p.m.).
Notes:
Hounds winger Marco Mignosa played in his 300th career OHL game on Friday.
