Greyhounds open road trip with victory (video, 9 photos)

It wasn’t easy, but the Soo Greyhounds continued their unbeaten run to start the Ontario Hockey League season on Thursday night.

The Greyhounds were forced to come from behind on three separate occasions in a 5-4 win over the North Bay Battalion in North Bay.

The game, which begins the first extended road trip of the season for the Greyhounds with three games in four days, saw the team erase North Bay leads of 1-0, 3-1 and 4-3.

“I wasn’t too excited about our game overall but I’m pleased that we find a way to win,” said Greyhounds coach Sheldon Keefe. “Having to play from behind is something we haven’t had to do yet this season. To do that and find a way to win is a positive.”

19-year-old Gabe Guertler had the game-winner for the Greyhounds, deflecting a Medric Mercier point shot with just over four minutes left in regulation time to give the Greyhounds what was their only lead of the night.

“He’s meant a lot (to the team),” Keefe said of Guertler. “He’s another older guy that is really strong in the faceoff circle. He’s taken on some penalty killing responsibilities for us. He’s scored big goals. He and (Jean) Dupuy have partnered together to be really good for us.”

Dupuy chipped in with a goal and three assists for the Greyhounds.

“He played like an overage player, he played like a man that we needed to against a big, strong and experienced team,” said Keefe. “We need a guy like that to really step up and get us going

Zach Senyshyn, Bryan Moore and Jared McCann also scored for the Greyhounds while goaltender Brandon Halverson stopped 30 shots.

“We played tentative and overall indecisively but frankly it’s not that I didn’t expect nor was I surprised to see,” Keefe said. “I knew that coming in to play on the road against an opponent like (North Bay), unlike any other that we’ve seen to this point in the season, I knew there was going to be a lot of adjustments for us. There’s a lot of things that we’ll be able to take away from this game that will help us.”

Alex Henriksson, Brett McKenzie, Ray Huether and Miles Liberati scored for the Battalion in the loss. Veteran goaltender Jake Smith stopped 24 shots.

With the win the Greyhounds improve to 8-0-0-0 while the loss was North Bay’s first in regulation time as their record falls to 3-1-3-0.

“To be 8-0 with room still to grow is a positive things,” Keefe said.

The road trip continues for the Greyhounds on Saturday in Belleville against the Bulls before concluding in Oshawa on Sunday night against the Generals.

SooToday will be at both games this weekend and will have live blogs and full game stories from both games.

Following are full video highlights from Thursday's game courtesy SooToday's sister site BayToday

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OTHER GAMES

In other action around the OHL on Thursday night:

In St. Catharines, Mikkel Aagaard had two goals and an assist as the Niagara IceDogs won their home opener, and the first game at the newly-built Meridian Centre. The IceDogs skated to a 7-4 win over the Belleville Bulls. Graham Knott had a goal and two assists for the IceDogs. Belleville goaltender Charlie Graham stopped 44 shots.

In Peterborough, Brandon Lindberg’s shorthanded goal at 11:46 of the second period held up as the winner as the Sarnia Sting beat the Peterborough Petes 5-3. Jeff King set up a pair of goals for Sarnia.

In Windsor, Josh Ho-Sang scored two goals and an assist as the Windsor Spitfires beat the Saginaw Spirit 8-5. Slater Doggett chipped in with a pair of goals while Logan Brown had a goal and two assists for the Spitfires. Artem Artemov scored two goals and set up another for the Spirit in the loss.

Photo: Gabe Guertler celebrates a goal in the Soo Greyhounds game against the North Bay Battalion in North Bay. Courtesy Tom Martineau