Goetz the hero in Greyhound win (video)

Down the road when he's asked what his first Ontario Hockey League goal was like, he can tell everyone it was a game-winner.

Soo Greyhounds forward Keigan Goetz scored his first OHL goal on Saturday night as the Greyhounds beat the Niagara IceDogs 3-2 at the Essar Centre.

The sophomore forward scored on a rebound in close on Niagara goaltender Brent Moran with just 43 seconds left in regulation time to give the Greyhounds the win. The goal came moments after Moran made a pair of stops, one on Bryan Moore and another on Goetz’s initial shot.

“Mooresy put it on net and the rebound came out right onto my stick,” Goetz said. “The first shot, (Moran) made an unbelievable glove save and it bobbled out and in the flurry of stick, I managed to pop it in.”

Following the late goal, the Greyhounds weren't out of the woods as the IceDogs pulled Moran in favour of an extra attacker. Niagara would have chances in the final 43 seconds including some just before time expired but couldn’t find the back of the net.

“I don’t know how we didn’t get one at the end there,” said Niagara coach Marty Williamson. “We had two good chances.”

Williamson said the Goetz goal was a product of “puck-watching.”

“We didn’t play the two-on-two that great but our goaltender bailed us out and then we were puck-watching,” Williamson said of the game-winning goal. “It’s early in the year and those are the mistakes that are going to cost you. (The Greyhounds) did a good job with their fourth-man attack game, especially early. We started surviving it as the game went on and getting our own chances.”

Gabe Guertler had a goal and an assist in the win for the Greyhounds while Blake Speers also scored in the win. Forward Sergey Tolchinsky had two assists.

“The emotion and energy on the bench and in the building and the pace on the ice was far greater than even I expected,” said Greyhounds coach Sheldon Keefe. “It felt like a different level than (Friday’s) game. It was interesting to see our guys ramp up their game.”

The game was pleasing for Keefe following Friday night’s 7-3 win over the Sarnia Sting in which the Greyhounds bench boss felt his team was “the second-best team on the ice.”

“Regardless of the result tonight, I just felt better about our game,” Keefe said of his feelings heading into the final period. “We could have lost tonight and I still would have felt better than I did last night. I just felt that we started to see some of the things we want to see from our guys.”

Jordan Maletta scored both goals for the IceDogs in the loss.

“Scoring goals has been our issue in the first two games,” Williamson said. “We’re getting better chances than the numbers we’re putting up. We should be able to get to that four (goal) mark and neither game we’ve been able to do that.”

That being said, Williamson has been pleased with his team through their first two games, which included a 3-1 loss in Sudbury on Friday.

“There are details that need to be worked out but we played pretty good (Friday night) and had 47 shots and had a goalie play really well against us and tonight again we had (the opposition) goalie play pretty well.”

Moran made 27 stops for Niagara while Greyhounds goaltender Brandon Halverson made 35 saves in the win.

“Moran was outstanding for us,” Williamson said. “Especially early in the game. He made some 10-bell saves and then we settled a bit and the second period was a better period for us.”

“That’s two of the better goalies that you’re going to see in the league,” Keefe said. “It was excellent goaltending both ways. There were a couple of sequences there where (Halverson and Moran) were going save-for-save and the teams were going chance-for-chance.”

The Greyhounds return to action on Wednesday night when they host the Saginaw Spirit in a 7:07 p.m. start.

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OTHER SCORES

In other games around the OHL on Saturday night Belleville beat Sudbury 2-1, Erie needed overtime to beat Plymouth 5-4, Saginaw also needed overtime in a 4-3 win over Sarnia while London beat Owen Sound 4-3 in a shootout.

File photo by Kenneth Armstrong/SooToday

To read SooToday's Live Blog from Saturday's game, click here

For video highlights, click here