Spitfires shoot down Hounds season
by Peter Ruicci (Independent Media) | Photo by Natalie Shaver (OHLImages)
As relentless as they were over the final 40 minutes on Friday, a glaring lack of discipline proved disastrous for the Soo Greyhounds.
The Windsor Spitfires took advantage of the Hounds lack of self-control, scoring six power-play goals in nine chances, en route to a series-clinching 8-4 victory in front of 4,942 at WFCU Centre.
The win gives the Spits the best-of-seven, Western Conference quarter-final 4-1.
“Especially in a do-or-die game, you can’t spend that much time in the box,” said Hounds head coach John Dean. “With a young team, emotions get in the way. But we have to be more disciplined. It’s another learning lesson for us.”
“We had to be a lot more disciplined than that,” added overage Owen Allard, playing in his final Greyhounds game. “One-hundred per cent, we can’t give a team that many power-play chances. That killed our momentum at the start of the game.”
Dean didn’t want to get into specifics, but he did make reference to two, five-minute penalties.
Jordan Charron’s five-minute match penalty for cross-checking and Caeden Carlisle’s five-minute fighting major (when the Windsor player wasn’t penalized) “didn’t necessarily need to be fives,” he said. “There’s calls that are tough to digest. But at the end of the day, we have to stay out of the box.”
Winger Marco Mignosa agreed the steady stream to the penalty box was costly.
“Frustration led to the lack of discipline,” he added.
However, the Hounds were more interested in talking about the way in which they rallied from a 6-1 deficit against a team they finished 34 points behind in the regular season.
The visitors trimmed Windsor’s advantage to 6-4 with still over 12 minutes remaining in regulation.
“I know it’s so hard to hear after a loss, but oh my God, how far we’ve come,” said Dean. “We had a never-quit attitude right to the bitter end. Despite the outcome, with the push we put on in that game, this is a very-proud moment for me as a coach.”
Dean went on to call the team’s character “second to none. Seeing them dig in and push when the chips were down, that suggests our future is very, very bright. Our guys believed they were going to win that game right to the end.”
Mignosa said the character of the Soo players speaks for itself.
“It’s truly special to not back down, no matter the score in the game or the series score,” he added.
Asked for his feelings on the comeback attempt, Allard said it was difficult for him to find the right words.
“To go down 6-1 and climb back, it showed a lot of character,” he said. “We wanted to go out with a fight and I’m really proud of our group.”
Windsor, 29-4-0-1 at home during the regular season, won all three games on home ice in this series, outscoring the Greyhounds 22-7.
“They’re incredible on home ice and they have arguably the best line (Ilya Protas, Liam Greentree and Noah Morneau) in the Canadian Hockey League,” said Dean, whose club found itself in a quick 3-0 hole on Friday and trailed 6-1 until Brady Martin scored a power-play goal with .01 seconds to go in the opening period.
Having scored multiple goals at ambulance speed in the first two games of the series, the Spits did it again in Game 5.
At 9:23 of the first period, Keegan Gillen fell and lost the puck in the neutral zone. On an odd-man rush, Jack Nisbett converted a beautiful pass from Cole Davis and beat Landon Miller, who had no chance on the play.
Miller started in place of Nolan Lalonde, who suffered a lower-body injury in the first period of Game 4 at GFL Memorial Gardens.
Questioned afterwards, Dean wouldn’t go into more detail about the injury. He did say Lalonde won’t require surgery, but the overage would have missed the remainder of this series.
With Carlisle off for cross-checking, the home side made it 2-0 just 1:13 later. Greentree went high blocker side on Miller from the right circle.
And just 59-seconds after that, at the 11:35 mark, the Spitfires increased their lead to 3-0. After Charron was sent off, Ryan Abraham beat Miller on the glove side from the right circle.
However, Travis Hayes, the Soo’s most-productive player in this series, set up Carson Andrew for a short-handed tally, beating Joey Costanzo at 11:54.
But Protas was all alone to bang in a rebound for Windsor’s third power-play goal of the period. That made it 4-1 at 13:14.
And after Hayes took a double-minor for high-sticking, Morneau converted on the 5-on-3 advantage for his eighth goal of the series.
Greentree went low stick side to beat Miller at 18:23 of the first to give the home team a 6-1 lead.
After Martin made it 6-2, Brady R. Smith banged home a rebound on a 4-on-4 in what was an impressive second period for the visitors.
The Soo climbed to within 6-4 with a power-play tally at 7:46 of the third. Allard won a draw and Martin beat Costanzo low to the glove side.
Abraham, on the power play and Greentree, with an empty-net, power-play goal, capped the scoring.
Greentree finished with three goals and two assists while Abraham scored twice and assisted on another. Protas contributed a goal and three assists, Nesbitt scored once and assisted on two others and Morneau finished with a goal and an assist. The Spits line of Protas, Greentree and Morneau combined for a whopping 41 points in the series.
Allard and Noel Nordh contributed two assists each in defeat.
As he departs the Sault, Allard, a signed prospect of the Utah Hockey Club, spoke of the Hounds camaraderie, calling the organization “amazing. It’s really a family and I wouldn’t want to play for anyone else. The Sault will always be my second home.”
Next up for the Hounds is this weekend’s OHL Development Combine in Oshawa. The combine provides a chance for 76 top prospects to show what they’re all about, on and off the ice, heading into this year’s Priority Selections draft.
The draft is set for next Friday and Saturday and the Greyhounds have a pair of first-round selections.
Their own choice is No. 7 overall, while they also have a compensatory choice, No. 19 overall. The first three rounds of this year’s draft are slated to commence at 7 p.m. on Day 1. Rounds 4-15 begin the next day at 9 a.m.
