Sting happy to see Hounds leave town
by Peter Ruicci (Independent Media) | Photo by Natalie Shaver (OHLImages)
No offence, but let’s be honest: The Soo Greyhounds have a well-earned reputation as the worst house guests in the OHL.
Those who offer some hospitality are most often treated with little respect.
Just ask the Sarnia Sting.
The Greyhounds scored three times in the second period on Saturday and five more in the third. The result was a 9-1 thrashing of the Sting in front of 4,112 at Progressive Auto Sales Arena.
The victory improved the Hounds road record to an OHL-best 18-5-1-1. Now they’re determined to try to match that success at home.
“I don’t know, I just don’t know. I wish I could tell you,” said head coach John Dean, when asked about why his club is so dominant away from GFL Memorial Gardens. “I don’t know whether their focus is more on hockey when we’re on the road. But we’re definitely a group motivated by adversity. We like being the villains a little bit, there’s no doubt about it.”
With the question obviously nagging at him, Dean went on to explain how a deep dive is in order.
“It’s something we have to look at,” said the coach, whose club left Sarnia with a 28-12-2-1 overall mark, while maintaining a four-point advantage over Saginaw (27-12-0-1) in the race for top spot in the West Division. “I don’t know why we can’t take the mentality we have on the road against a team trying to steal our home ice away from us.”
The Spirit, who have three games in hand on the Soo, secured a 4-2 win in Ottawa on Saturday.
“We know when we play our best hockey we’re the best team in the league and no one wants to play us,” added centre Owen Allard, when questioned about the club’s road dominance. “We come into barns, we make noise and we’re really relentless. We always have something to prove.”
Allard, who had a goal and two assists in the victory, also spoke of how the Greyhounds “need to bring that to our home rink and make it a real hard place to play.”
The Soo’s home ice record is a very ordinary 10-7-1-0.
As for Saturday’s clash, Dean, whose team won both games of a brief two-game trip, talked about how he liked his club’s “O-zone time” and how the players were “willing to get to the paint. When we got a big lead, our guys were willing to do the right things. They were tracking back and getting above pucks.”
“Really-good team effort,” added defenceman Brodie McConnell-Barker, who had three assists and a plus-minus of plus-6. “I thought we all contributed and played really hard. We’re putting pucks behind the D, forechecking hard and getting the puck back.”
Jack Beck and Andrew Gibson also contributed a goal and two assists for the winners, who play host to Erie on Sunday (2:07 p.m.). Like McConnell-Barker, Gibson posted a plus-minus of plus-6.
Jacob Frasca opened the scoring for the Hounds by notching his first point in a Soo uniform. Christopher Brown fed Frasca in front and the former Barrie Colt deposited his own rebound past Sarnia netminder Karsen Chartier at 19:27 of the opening period.
At 12:12 of the middle frame, Allard fed Marco Mignosa and the veteran winger made it 2-0. Mignosa moved around one defender before scoring low on the glove side from the edge of the right-wing circle.
Just 3:30 later, Brady Martin converted from a bad angle, as his shot deflected in off of a Sarnia defender.
Late in the period, Allard scored on the power play as his low shot from the right circle appeared to deflect off of a Sting player and past Chartier to make it 4-0.
Beck, on a feed from Mignosa, Gavin Hayes, with the team’s second power-play marker of the night, Gibson, on a shot from the right circle through traffic, and Julian Fantino, who fired from the slot, added third period tallies to make it 8-0.
Nathan Omeri broke Landon Miller’s shutout bid by scoring at 16:43 of the third.
“Our bench was extremely upset when Sarnia scored,” said Dean. “The guys weren’t happy with each other and not happy with the goal against. That was the most-impressive thing for me. It showed me where our group is at and what’s important to them.”
Jordan D’Intino, on a 4-on-4 breakaway, capped the scoring at the 19:19 mark.
Mignosa, Frasca and Fantino all contributed a goal and an assist.
“We were really connected as a group tonight,” Allard noted. “We were finding each other and we had lots of confidence with the puck.”
On a night when they were outshot 32-25, the Sting fell to 16-25-2-0.
Asked about his team converting half of its four, power-play chances, Dean said he liked what he’d witnessed.
“I thought it looked very good tonight. We switched our unit up a little bit,” the coach added. “We needed those goals if we’re really being honest with ourselves.”