Dominant performance to open homestand (11 photos)

It was as dominant a performance as the Soo Greyhounds have had recently, and there have been a few of them.

The Greyhounds opened up their three-game Ontario Hockey League homestand on Wednesday night with a 5-1 win over the Plymouth Whalers.

What made the win even more impressive was the 37-8 edge in shots over the final two periods of the game. It was then that the Greyhounds broke open a 1-1 tie to pick up the victory.

“(Plymouth) had a short bench and we’ve got a lot of depth,” said Greyhounds Coach Sheldon Keefe. “As the game went on, we just started to take control. When we’re playing the right way it’s hard to take (the game) back from us. We just wore them down tonight.”

Whalers coach Don Elland noted the Greyhounds depth in the win.

“They’re one of the top teams in the league for a reason,” said Elland. “They had three guys out and they don’t miss a beat. They’ve got depth and they’re older. They’re a good team. They’re well constructed, they’re well coached and right now we’re not that hard to play against.”

“The score probably should have been even a bit more lopsided,” Elland added.

Keefe said the game had a similar feel to some of the recent efforts by the team.

“In the second and third periods we might have had one scoring chance against,” Keefe said. “It was a good effort by our guys. That’s how we’ve been playing. We’ve been playing games like that on the road. It’s nice to come back and get one on home ice.”

Gabe Guertler had two goals and an assist in the win for the Greyhounds. The second goal by the 19-year-old came early in the third period with the score still in doubt.

“It was a pretty big goal,” Guertler said of his second of the night. “It helped us move forward and get a few more at the end.”

The second goal made it 3-1 three minutes into the third period.

“The way that we were playing, we had a sense that it was going to be hard for (Plymouth) to generate much and if we could start to pull away, with their short bench that we could really take the wind out of their sails,” Keefe said. “We had a sense that we needed to get one but at the same time we challenged our guys to do it the right way.”

Tyler Ganly had a goal and an assist for the Greyhounds while Gustav Bouramman added a pair of assists. Zach Senyshyn and Bryan Moore also scored in the win while Brandon Halverson stopped 16 shots.
“We just wanted to really take over in the second period and wear them down,” Keefe said of the message after the first period. “They’ve got a number of injuries and guys out. We felt we had a really good chance to take the game over in the second period and we did. Goaltending was keeping the game tight. It was still a one-shot game. We had to stick with it all the way through and I was happy that we did.”

Matt Mistele had the lone goal for the Whalers in the loss. Alex Nedeljkovic stopped 39 shots and was pulled after the Greyhounds fifth goal. Zack Bowman came in to stop all six shots he faced the rest of the way.

“Ned was good,” Elland said. “At a certain point you’ve got to realized that you’re swimming upstream and get him out of there and give Bowman some ice.”

The Greyhounds improve to 22-6-0-2 with the win while the Whalers drop to 10-17-1-1 with the loss.

The Greyhounds return to action on Friday night when they host the Kingston Frontenacs.

(PHOTO: Greyhounds forward Hayden Verbeek celebrates a third period goal during a game against the visiting Plymouth Whalers on December 10, 2014. The Greyhounds went on to win 5-1 at the Essar Centre in Sault Ste. Marie. Kenneth Armstrong/SooToday)