Hounds lose in Ottawa, but Brzustowski ‘doing well’

by Peter Ruicci (Independent Media) | Photo by Valerie Wutti

To say little went right for the Soo Greyhounds on Sunday would be a considerable understatement.

Sloppy play in their own zone – and the turnovers which followed – paved the way to a disappointing, 6-1 loss to the Ottawa 67s before 3,454 at TD Place.

“Probably our worst effort of the year,” said head coach John Dean, whose team fell to 3-5-3-1.

However, the day’s most-important development occurred off the ice with news Hounds defenceman Luc Brzustowski had escaped serious injury after suffering an on-ice seizure early in the second period.

“He’s doing well now,” said Dean, reassured after speaking to Brzustowski via cellphone from a local hospital minutes after the game. “He was in good spirits laughing and chuckling. That’s a huge relief.”

At the time of this writing, it’s not known whether the 19-year-old (2003) Kitchener, Ont., native, who was taken by the Soo in the sixth round of the 2019 OHL draft, would be returning on the team bus.

With the visitors trailing 1-0 at 1:18 of the second period, Brzustowski was exiting his own zone when he was on the receiving end of a hit by Ottawa’s Tyler Boucher. The second-year player fell awkwardly onto his back near the 67s bench and was obviously in distress.

Paramedics rushed to his side almost immediately and the six-foot-one, 180-pounder was taken off the ice by stretcher. Brzustowski, who offered his teammates and those in attendance a thumbs-up sign as he left the ice, was transported to hospital where he underwent a battery of tests.

He passed the first group of tests “taking away some significant concerns,” Dean said shortly after the game, noting how the player was alert and able to move all limbs successfully. “He’s doing well.”

So upsetting was the incident, the Greyhounds appeared to have difficulty regaining focus.

Ottawa’s Cooper Foster, a Sault native, made it 2-0 with a slick redirection at the 1:58 mark, before Luca Pinelli gave the home side a three-goal cushion just 28 seconds later.

And 11 minutes after that, Chris Barlas jammed his own rebound home on the short side to make it 4-0.

“As a leader, you try to keep everyone positive,” said Hounds captain Bryce McConnell-Barker. “But obviously, it sucked to see Luc go down. It’s tough to bounce back from that.”

Regardless of the injury, Dean said the Hounds didn’t like their second period start.

And while he spoke of how you “definitely don’t want to make any excuses,” the coach agreed the incident did have “an impact on our game, there’s no doubt about it.  That threw our guys for a loop.”

Players could be seen expressing emotion on the Soo bench and Dean noted how “we had three or four kids bawling in tears. They were very upset and very, very emotional. Our response was an indication of us having some frazzled players.”

Meantime, with the Soo unable to clear its zone, Ottawa’s Brad Gardiner beat Hounds goalie Charlie Schenkel high to the glove-hand side from the high slot just 19 seconds into the middle stanza.

On a day when Ottawa held a 48-23 edge in shots and peppered the Hounds goal with a flurry of Grade A scoring chances, Schenkel departed after two periods. Samuel Ivanov took over at the start of the third and was nicked for goals by Boucher, on the power play, and Cameron Tolnai.

Pinelli finished with a goal and an assist for the winners, who improved to 10-1-0-0, following a 5-3 loss to Peterborough on Friday. Anthony Costantini contributed two assists.

Connor Clattenburg, with the first goal of his OHL career, got the Hounds on the board by breaking Collin MacKenzie’s shutout bid with 1:02 left in regulation.

“We were very passive in our own zone, very sloppy moving the puck,” Dean said of his club’s performance. “We weren’t aggressive on the forecheck, which got us paid in Kingston.”

The Hounds stopped the Frontenacs 6-2 on Friday.

“It definitely was” a sloppy day with the puck, McConnell-Barker agreed. “We made a lot of turnovers, we weren’t competing today, we got outplayed, for sure.”

The Greyhounds are slated to return to action at 7:05 p.m. on Wednesday in Sudbury. After that, they’re scheduled to play host to Guelph on Friday and Niagara on Saturday. Both are 7:07 p.m. starts.