RECAP; Greyhounds tame rival Wolves
by Peter Ruicci (Independent Media) | Photo by Bob Davies
Was it four goals in an 11-minute span in the second period?
Was it their balanced scoring, with six different players contributing goals and 11 different players notching at least one point?
How about their penalty-killing prowess?
Or maybe it was their ability to take advantage of the Sudbury Wolves skating short-handed on defence?
Whatever the biggest factor was on Wednesday, the Soo Greyhounds impressed in a number of areas, en route to controlling the Wolves and winning 6-2 before 1,865 at Sudbury Community Arena.
“This obviously feels really good,” said Hounds winger Tye Kartye, who tied a franchise record for fastest goal by scoring his 34th of the season at the :08 mark of the opening period. “We know we still have more, but that was a good stepping stone.”
Kartye tied the mark first set by Mike Kaszycki on Oct. 4, 1975, against Peterborough.
While the opening frame wasn’t perfect, “the second and third periods I really enjoyed,” said head coach John Dean, whose team snapped a three-game (0-2-1-0) losing skid, improving to 29-17-6-1 and moving into second place in the Ontario Hockey League’s West Division. “I think we had a really good response. Guys played with pace and they played with purpose.”
Dean praised the special teams and netminder Tucker Tynan, but thought the key lay in playing a “pretty simple hockey game.”
First-place Flint (33-16-1-3) leads the Hounds by five points with both teams having 15 regular season games remaining. That includes three, head-to-head matchups – all in the Michigan city.
The Firebirds and third-place Windsor Spitfires (29-14-3-3) were both idle on Wednesday. Windsor is one point back of the Soo and six back of Flint, but has four games in hand on both division rivals.
“It feels good to put a pretty-good effort in tonight (Wednesday),” said centre Rory Kerins, who notched his 34th goal of the season and was dominant in the face-off circle, winning 19 of 29 draws. “We didn’t like our first period too much, so we wanted to come out in the second and respond in a good way.”
Which is exactly what they did.
Tied 1-1 after 20 minutes, Kartye faked a shot from the right wing, drew a defenceman toward him and fed Kerins, who had half the net available at 3:31 of the second period.
Just over two minutes later, defenceman Jack Thompson skated to the top of the right face-off circle and beat Wolves netminder Mitchell Weeks to make it 3-1.
At the 7:41 mark, Keegan McMullen redirected a Kirill Kudryavtsev point shot for his seventh goal of the season and third in a Greyhounds’ uniform.
Sudbury’s Kocha Delic, on a feed by former Greyhound Marc Boudreau, notched his second of the night to make it a 4-2 game.
But on the power play, Bryce McConnell-Barker beat Weeks from the right-wing face-off circle to give the visitors a 5-2 cushion at 14:29.
“Everyone chipped in and we got those four goals through hard work,” Kerins added. “That’s the team we’ve got to be for the next 15 games and playoffs. We have to be team that gets goals through hard work.”
“That’s what we need to do every period,” added Kartye. “That’s our goal. We have to try to duplicate that second period for the first and third periods.”
While holding the Wolves off the scoresheet during six power-play opportunities, the Hounds were perhaps most impressive early in the third while killing off a double-minor.
Dean credited associate coach Jordan Smith, who runs the PK, for having the players prepared.
“Guys were sacrificing their bodies, blocking shots and they were cheered on by their teammates,” Dean added. “That four-minute PK was huge for us.”
Rookie Jordan D’Intino, with his fifth goal, completed the scoring on a night when the Hounds held a 40-21 edge in shots. Kartye, Thompson and McConnell-Barker all finished with a goal and an assist as the Hounds won their sixth in eight tries against the Wolves this season.
Kudryavtsev, Rob Calisti, Cole MacKay and Marco Mignosa contributed two assists each for the Greyhounds, who are slated to entertain Kitchener both Friday and Saturday in 7:07 p.m. starts.
The Wolves played minus veteran defencemen Liam Ross and Dylan Robinson, both out with lower-body injuries. Another regular, Nolan Collins, was serving Game 2 of a two-game suspension.
Former Greyhound rearguard Jacob Holmes logged big minutes and overage forward Dominik Jendek was forced into duty on defence.
“We talked about trying to get pucks behind their defencemen as much as possible,” Dean said. “Tucker also looked very engaged tonight and tracked pucks well. They only had 20 shots, but they had some Grade A chances and Tucker did exactly what he was supposed to do.”