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Exhibition season wraps up for Soo Greyhounds

Although the Ontario Hockey League regular season doesn’t begin for another 11 days, the Soo Greyhounds and Saginaw Spirit wrapped up their respective exhibition schedules on Saturday night.

Although the Ontario Hockey League regular season doesn’t begin for another 11 days, the Soo Greyhounds and Saginaw Spirit wrapped up their respective exhibition schedules on Saturday night.

The Spirit used a three-goal opening period to skate to a 5-3 win over the Greyhounds Saturday at the Essar Centre locally.

The Greyhounds played the game minus the services of a number of veterans away at National Hockey League camps.

“There were some really good things and some things we need to get better at,” said Greyhounds coach Sheldon Keefe. “It’s tough because you’ve got so many guys playing in situations and scenarios and against players that they won’t be when the regular season starts.”

The team has played their four exhibition games, in which they finished with a 1-3 record, without seven players drafted by NHL squads, including defencemen Darnell Nurse, Tyler Ganly and Kyle Jenkins as well as goaltender Brandon Halverson and forwards Jared McCann, Sergey Tolchinsky and Michael Bunting. Bunting and McCann are currently not skating due to bouts of mononucleosis. Overage players Alex Gudbranson (Minnesota), Jean Dupuy (Winnipeg) and Bryan Moore (New York Rangers) as well as forward Charley Graaskamp (Anaheim) are also away at NHL rookie camps.

“Exhibition is always tough to get through at the best of times and when you have such a large group that you’re missing, it’s even more challenging,” said Keefe. “That said, our young kids had a really good opportunity to play here the last couple of weeks and play a lot. For me as a coach, I come away more comfortable with them all as players and individuals.”

“It’s good for them too (because) they recognize what it’s like to play in this league,” said Keefe.

Kris Bennett had a pair of goals for the Spirit on Saturday night while Artem Artemov, Mitchell Stephens and Jacob Ringuette also scored in the win. Goaltender David Ovsjannikov stopped 31 shots for Saginaw.

“We’ve got a lot of areas we need to work on being as young as we are,” said Saginaw coach Greg Gilbert following the game. “We did some good things. There were some times where the simple things were there to be made, the simple plays, and we tried to do something tougher. There’s some positives and a lot of evidence of areas where we need to polish up.”

Keigan Goetz, Zach Senyshyn and Blake Speers scored for the Greyhounds in Saturday’s loss. Goaltender Brian Kment stopped 26 shots.

For Keefe, the exhibition season isn’t a true representation of whet the OHL regular season entails.

“I look back and I think about what goes on in these four exhibition games and there’s really not a lot that replicates what happens in the regular season,” said Keefe. “Right from our travel. We had two weekends in a row where we travel through the night, get home at three in the morning and then play the next day. I think there’s one occasion the whole season where that happens for us.”

The Greyhounds kick off the OHL regular season on Sept. 26 when they host the Sarnia Sting in a 7:07 p.m. start.

File photo: Soo Greyhounds forward Keigan Goetz Kenneth Armstrong/SooToday.com


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Brad Coccimiglio

About the Author: Brad Coccimiglio

A graduate of Loyalist College’s Sports Journalism program, Brad Coccimiglio’s work has appeared in The Hockey News as well as online at FoxSports.com in addition to regular freelance work with SooToday before joining the team full time.
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