Hounds ride 40 ‘dominant’ minutes to victory
by Peter Ruicci (Indepdendent Media) | Photo by Bob Davies
For two periods on Saturday, they resembled a motorcycle gang rolling over a quiet church picnic.
But despite the Soo Greyhounds total dominance – marked by a 34-9 edge in shots through 40 minutes – they needed a strong finish to finally put away the Windsor Spitfires.
The Hounds notched a pair of third period goals 1:05 apart to beat the Spits 5-2, in front of 4,017 at GFL Memorial Gardens.
“We were great. We executed our game plan,” winger Julian Fantino said of his team’s first two periods. “We controlled play, 100 per cent.”
“We were dominant over the first 40 minutes,” agreed head coach John Dean, whose club made an unforced error in the third, watching a 3-1 lead nearly slip away. “I loved our compete, I loved the way we got above the puck when we didn’t have it, we owned the puck in the O zone and I liked how quickly our D moved the puck.”
That allowed the home side to outshoot the Spits 21-6 in the opening period and 13-3 in the second, en route to a 47-19 overall advantage.
Were it not for the netminding of Joey Costanzo, the Hounds, who led 3-1 heading into the final frame, could have been up by half a dozen.
But despite their inability to finish more of their scoring opportunities, Hounds skaters didn’t go off script.
“To me, that’s the storyline,” said Dean, who called Costanzo’s performance “great,” while agreeing his team has matured to the point where wins are far more important than individual statistics.
“We weren’t getting paid, but we still stuck to our game plan,” added overage forward Jordan D’Intino, whose club improved to 42-16-3-1, but failed to make up ground on both Saginaw (46-15-1-1) and London (46-14-1-3) in the Western Conference race.
The Spirit stopped Guelph 6-0 on Saturday while London was a 4-1 winner over Kitchener.
Saginaw and London have five regular season games left, while the Hounds, six points back of both, have six more to play.
Kitchener (40-21-2-0) is fourth in the conference, six points back of the Hounds with five games remaining.
Windsor defenceman Anthony Cristoforo fell ill during the second intermission on Sunday, causing a delay before the third period began.
After the contest, Spitfires interim head coach Casey Torres said Cristoforo was fine, adding he believed the player may have suffered from dehydration.
“He was very white, very pale,” added Torres, whose player was treated by local paramedics and remained at the arena.
Dean said the delay took something out of his club.
“Weird third period,” the Soo coach added.
With the Soo on a power play in the final frame, goalie Landon Miller came out of his net and misplayed a loose puck.
Windsor’s AJ Spellacy gobbled it up and notched a short-handed marker at 6:33 to make it 3-2.
“I looked down to line the puck up,” explained Miller. “I looked up to see where the opposition was and the puck was in my feet.”
Fantino said the goal was the result of a lucky bounce.
“We didn’t get fazed by it and I liked how we responded,” he added.
With their lead cut to 3-2, the Hounds scored a big goal at 11:49 when Jack Beck took a between-the-legs feed from Gavin Hayes. Beck slipped into the slot and beat Costanzo high to the stick side for his 24th goal of the season.
Matthew Virgilio scored from nearly the same spot on the ice at 12:54 to make it 5-2. The second-year rearguard took a drop pass from Justin Cloutier before also burying his shot high to the stick side.
“The bench was always positive,” said D’Intino, discussing the fact his team had controlled play, but was only up 3-2 midway through the third. “There was never a doubt we would win.”
Liam Greentree opened the scoring for the visitors just :10 into the contest. He took a feed from Ryan Abraham and, while alone in the slot, beat Miller high to the stick side.
Just under 15-minutes later, Brady Martin took a feed from D’Intino and, with the Soo on the power play, went high glove side on Costanzo to tie the game.
The home side took the lead just 56 seconds into the middle frame when Fantino ripped one home from the left face-off dot. Fantino’s 11th of the season eluded Costanzo high to the glove side.
Less than 10-minutes later, Jacob Frasca took a feed from Beck and scored a power-play goal from in front of the Windsor net to make it 3-1 Greyhounds.
Beck and Frasca finished with a goal and an assist each while D’Intino contributed a pair of assists.
Despite the loss, Torres spoke of how proud he was of his young team, playing its third game in as many days.
“Joey was very good and we hung around. We played hard against a very strong team,” said Torres, whose club fell to 18-36-5-3 and was officially eliminated from the playoff race.
The Greyhounds return to action Wednesday in Flint.
Notes:
The Hounds were minus forwards Owen Allard, Travis Hayes and Marco Mignosa on Saturday. All remain sidelined with upper-body injuries.
