Hounds wobble, but rally to win
by Peter Ruicci (Independent Media) | Photos by Bob Davies
FULL PHOTO GALLERY | GAME HIGHLIGHTS | GAME CENTRE
On a night when their play left much to be desired, the Soo Greyhounds can take solace in the fact winning snugly is always better than losing ugly.
Despite their struggles, the Hounds scored four unanswered goals on Wednesday, including an empty-netter, to beat the Sudbury Wolves 4-2 in front of 3,662 at GFL Memorial Gardens.
“That was a bad hockey game, period. That’s not the game we want to put in front of our Sault faithful, that’s for sure,” said Hounds head coach John Dean, whose club grabbed two points on a night when both Flint and London lost in regulation. “Our back end really, really struggled. Three or four guys up front were very good, but the rest was very difficult to watch.”
“We had a bad start. It wasn’t a great game for us,” said overage Marco Mignosa, whose short-handed goal late in the second period sparked his team’s comeback. “But we stuck with it and good teams find ways to win.”
Hounds winger Jeremy Martin, who ran his goals streak to six straight games, also found his club’s performance lacking.
“We definitely have a lot better that we can bring,” Martin began. “We plan on doing that this weekend, showing the league that we’re a threat and we want to win the conference.”
Having improved to 32-16-1-3, good for 68 points, the Hounds are slated to hit the road on Thursday before beginning a three-game trip on Friday (7 p.m.) in London.
The Knights fell 4-2 to Guelph on Wednesday, dropping to 30-18-4-1. They’re fifth in the Western Conference, three points back of the fourth-place Greyhounds and the Soo has a game in hand.
Flint (35-13-3-2) also lost on Wednesday, bowing 5-4 to Saginaw. The Firebirds and Kitchener lead the conference with 75 points each, two ahead of third-place Windsor.
With 73 points, the Spitfires (33-12-5-2) lead over the Greyhounds has been trimmed to just five points. Both clubs have 16 regular season games remaining.
Having shown very little spark in the opening period, the Hounds found themselves in a 2-0 hole – while killing a penalty – late in the second.
That’s when Mignosa took a stretch pass from Spencer Evans and went to work. The club’s leading scorer circled in the Sudbury zone, before firing from the top of the left circle at the 17:31 mark.
“We needed to get one,” said Mignosa, who saw Wolves goalie Bjorn Bronas get a piece of the shot, before it went over his pad on the glove-hand side.
“Travis (Hayes) was busting for a 2-on-1, so it gave me time to get middle ice,” Mignosa added. “I just shot it and it went in.”
Was that the turning point?
“Oh, for sure. I think so,” said Dean. “There’s no doubt the group was frustrated (at that point). We don’t feel as if we were playing our best and to score a shorty, it puts a little juice in our step.”
“It was a good feeling to get a goal going into the third,” said Mignosa of his 22nd tally of the season, and the 12th short-handed goal of his OHL career.
That moves him into sole possession of third place on the franchise’s all-time list, trailing only Boris Katchouk and Steve Gatzos, who had 13 shorties each during their time here.
Down 2-1 to start the third, the home side took advantage of Bronas not be able to control his rebounds.
At 10:56, Mignosa fired from the right-wing boards. Bronas made the initial stop but was unable to cover the puck. Martin banged home the rebound for his 21st goal of the season.
“I think I got a little tip in front and that screwed the goalie up a little,” Martin explained. “I just started whacking and it went in on the first one.”
Jut 3:39 later, Travis Hayes led a rush down the left wing before dropping the puck for Chris Brown.
Bronas made the initial stop of Brown’s shot from the left circle, but Hayes followed up, grabbed the rebound and banked it home off of the Sudbury goalie.
The home side took its first lead on Goal No. 13 for Hayes.
“We were net hungry,” said Dean. “This was not my favourite game, but we’ll take the two points.”
On a night when the Soo held a 30-22 edge in shots, Lukas Fischer capped the scoring with a late empty-net tally.
Mignosa and Martin each finished with a goal and an assist.
J.C. Lemieux, on a drive to the net with just 1.2 seconds remaining, scored in the first period for the visitors. Ethan Dean, off a face-off win, beat Landon Miller seven minutes into the middle frame to make it 2-0.
Miller was sharp in the third when the Wolves were pushing.
“I thought we gave ourselves every chance to win this hockey game,” said Sudbury head coach Scott Barney, whose club fell to 20-30-2-0. “But up 2-1 going into the third, you have to find a way to get a point.”
The Soo held centre Brady Martin out of the game for precautionary reasons. Martin returned on Sunday from an unspecified shoulder injury and Dean plans to manage his playing time, at least for a while.
The coach has explained how the Hounds want to limit the chance for the injury to reoccur, by making sure the muscles around the shoulder are not fatigued.
Following the London clash, the Soo is slated to visit Owen Sound on Saturday (7 p.m.) and Sarnia on Monday (2:05 p.m.)
