RECAP; Sarnia silences Soo shooters
by Peter Ruicci (Independent Media) | Photo courtesy of the Sarnia Sting
The plan was to build on their three-game winning streak.
Instead, the Soo Greyhounds slumbered through 60 minutes on Wednesday, showing very little in a 4-0 loss to the Sarnia Sting before 2,670 at Progressive Auto Sales Arena.
“To be honest, I kind of thought we got embarrassed,” overage defenceman Rob Calisti said following Game 1 of a three-game road trip. “I don’t know what it is, but we didn’t have it tonight. It was pretty embarrassing for us.”
“We were flat. We had lots of passengers tonight, that was ultimately the story,” said head coach John Dean, whose team generated very few quality scoring chances, while falling to 31-18-6-1 and out of second place in the Ontario Hockey League’s West Division. “We need to have guys who want to fly the plane, and too many guys are ready to allow others to be the pilot.”
Windsor moved into second place on Wednesday, bumping the Hounds into third spot with a come-from-behind 6-5 overtime win in Owen Sound. With a 32-16-3-3 record, the Spits are one point up on the Soo with two games in hand.
Flint (35-16-1-3) was idle on Wednesday, before playing host to the Greyhounds on Friday (7 p.m.) at Dort Financial Center. The Firebirds lead Windsor by four points with the Spits having one game in hand.
Flint is five points ahead of the Soo with one in hand on the Greyhounds.
Asked what happened to his club on Wednesday, Dean spoke of how difficult it is to put his finger on it.
“You’d think there’d be a sense of excitement. These games do happen, but when they do, you can’t make those defensive errors which cost you the game,” added the coach, who talked about how “blatant errors” directly led to Sarnia’s first two goals.
“Usually, if we have a bad game there’s some bright moments,” said overage winger Cole MacKay, whose club generated few quality scoring chances while losing for the third time in five tries against the Sting this season. “To be honest, I don’t think there were too many of those. Our power play wasn’t working and they outworked us for a good chunk of that game.”
The Sault native went on to explain how Wednesday’s performance is “one we’ll try to scrap, move on and be way better on Friday.”
While Sarnia netminder Anson Thornton posted his first career shutout, the clean slate was the second for the Sting in its last three games against the Hounds. Ben Gaudreau posted a 3-0 shutout when the teams met on Feb. 11 in the Sault.
And, after not having been blanked all season, the Hounds have now lost by way of shutout three times over their last 14 games.
After a scoreless first period, the Sting got on the board just 1:01 into the middle frame when Max Namestnikov beat his man to the net and tapped in a cross-ice feed from Theo Hill.
After winning a face-off, Sarnia went up 2-0 late in the period when Ethan Ritchie’s point shot hit a Hounds player in front. The puck wound up getting past goalie Tucker Tynan on the stick side.
Namestnikov notched his second goal on the power play early in the third. Hill slid the puck across and, from the right wing, the first-year player fired a shot home on the glove-hand side. That made it 3-0 at the 4:42 mark.
Just under two minutes later, Angus MacDonell skated down the right side, cut to the middle of the ice and put one past Tynan on the glove-side. As Hill was contributing his third assist, the short-handed marker all but ended it.
At that point, Tynan was replaced by Samuel Ivanov with Dean saying he was simply trying to give his team a boost and get Ivanov, recently back from the injury list, some playing time.
The Hounds power play finished 0-for-6 and while Dean surely would’ve loved some early PP production, he talked about how the Hounds “have to stop relying” on that part of their game. “We have to be a team excited to generate 5-on-5.”
As for the clash with Flint, MacKay again talked of how each time the Soo loses “someone has to pay. Too bad for Flint that it’s going to be Friday. That’s the mentality we have.”
Calisti, who placed much of the blame for Wednesday’s struggles on the club’s core veterans – himself included – said the Firebirds are definitely a good team.
“It’s huge for us and we’ll absolutely be motivated,” he added.
“We need to find our game and find some consistency,” said Dean, focused on his club winning now and taking momentum into the playoffs.
The Soo has 12 regular season games remaining.
“Flint has been much more consistent than we have all season long,” Dean continued. “It’s paramount to find consistency and our identity.”
Following the Flint matchup, the Soo concludes its trip on Saturday in Saginaw (7:05 p.m.).
Notes:
Prior to the Hounds leaving the Sault, winger Marco Mignosa suffered an upper-body injury at practice. He missed Wednesday’s game, won’t play on the trip and is listed as week-to-week.
