Catenacci leads offense for Hounds over 67s
Story by Brad Coccimiglio (Sootoday.com) / Photo courtesy of James Egan Photography
The Soo Greyhounds successfully opened the Ontario Hockey League season on Friday night.
The Greyhounds picked up a 6-5 victory over the Ottawa 67’s in front of an announced crowd of 4,744 at the Essar Centre.
“In the first period we looked slow, sloppy and sluggish and not really sure what to do,” said Greyhounds coach Denny Lambert. “Then, in the second and third periods I thought we took the game over with our speed.”
Daniel Catenacci set up three goals while Brett Thompson, Justin Thomas, Nick Cousins, Carson Dubchak, Trrevor Morbeck and Dominic DeSando scored for the Greyhounds.
Matt Murray, starting in place of Bryce O’Hagan, who had been benched for disciplinary reasons, picked up his first OHL victory with 29 saves.
“There were a couple of soft goals there but overall I thought he did a great job,” said Lambert. “He made some really big saves in there. He looked comfortable for a majority of the game.”
Lambert credited the Greyhounds penalty kill, which gave up one power play goal in seven Ottawa chances, following the win.
“They did a really good job,” said Lambert. “We got into some penalty trouble again. We did a good job there. We don’t want to be doing that every game though.
67’s coach Chris Byrne was disappointed with defensive side of Friday’s game.
“We’ve got to play better as a team defensively,” said Bryne. “We’re going to score our fair share of goals. Our thing is to play good team defense, which we didn’t do tonight.”
Shane Prince, Tyler Toffoli and Jon Carnevale had a goal and an assist each for the visitors while Thomas Nesbitt and Steven Janes also scored in the loss.
In the win, the Greyhounds lost the services of defenseman Brock Beukebom, who was assessed a fighting major after a fight between Cody Linday and Dubchak broke out. Beukeboom and Smith dropped their gloves to go while Linday and Dubchak were already squared off.
Lambert said following the win that Beukeboom will sit out at least Saturday night’s game against the Niagara IceDogs. O’Hagan is expected to get the start.
(Check out VIDEO HIGHLIGHTS from tonight’s game on the homepage. **we apologize for no audio as we were experiencing technical difficulties.
