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New-look Greyhounds downright offensive in home debut (13 photos)

It wasn’t an easy night to be a goaltender on Wednesday night in the Ontario Hockey League. The league’s lone game saw the Soo Greyhounds beat the Saginaw Spirit 12-5 in front of an announced crowd of over 4,700 at the Essar Centre.

It wasn’t an easy night to be a goaltender on Wednesday night in the Ontario Hockey League.

The league’s lone game saw the Soo Greyhounds beat the Saginaw Spirit 12-5 in front of an announced crowd of over 4,700 at the Essar Centre.

It was the first home game for the four newest acquisitions of the Greyhounds as Nick Ritchie, Connor Boland, Tony DeAngelo and Justin Bailey were all playing at the Essar Centre for the first time since being acquired by the team prior to last week’s trade deadline.

Ritchie had a big night offensively, scoring four times in the win.

“I’ve had a lot of good (games) but being with a new team, it’s the first home game, it was pretty special,” Ritchie said. “I might not have too many four-goal games but hopefully I can play the same way in the future.”

Greyhounds coach Sheldon Keefe was impressed with Ritchie’s performance in the win.

“He was just dominant,” Keefe said of the 19-year-old. “Not just from a physical standpoint. His skill level was really on display today. He’s not a guy that I’ve seen a lot of given that he played in the Eastern Conference but he showed a skillset tonight that was tremendous. When you combine that with the size and strength that he has, it’s a nice combo and you saw the results tonight.”

Bailey would finish the night with three goals while DeAngelo and Michael Bunting had a goal and three assists each. Hayden Verbeek added a pair of goals while Sergey Tolchinsky had a goal and an assist. In all, 12 Greyhounds had multi-point nights in the win.

Brandon Halverson got the start and stopped 10 shots before being pulled after the third Saginaw goal.

“He was very sleepy in the game and wasn’t engaged,” Keefe said. “We’re giving our team wakeup calls on the bench and trying to get them to stay engaged and stay alert in games. I didn’t think he was doing that. If he’s going to be sleepy, he can be sleepy on the bench.”

Keefe did say Halverson would start on Friday against Guelph.

Joseph Raaymakers came in and stopped 17 shots the rest of the way.

Keefe wasn't pleased with the Greyhounds play after the opening period in which they outshot the Spirit 12-4 and took a 5-1 lead.

“That first period, we really felt good about it,” said Keefe. “I understand that it’s hard to play a game when you get five goals in the first period. You feel like it’s going to be one of those nights. If we play and prepare the way we’re capable of, we’re going to have nights like that where you’re going to get ahead of the game. You have to stick with it.”

“The game was very even and frankly we were outplayed in chunks of the second and third (periods),” Keefe also said. “To give up five goals against and that number of shots after limiting them to basically nothing in the first period is unacceptable.”

“It’s going to take a little bit to get together as a team and start playing tighter hockey but we have a lot of firepower and once we start containing that and playing good defensively, it’s going to be really good,” Ritchie said.

Tye Felhaber had two goals and an assist for the Spirit in the loss while Connor Brown and Mitchell Stephens added a goal and an assist each. Dylan Sadowy also scored in the loss.

“They’re built to make a push and we’re at the other end of the spectrum,” Spirit coach Greg Gilbert said. “We’re the youngest team in the league and we’re going to have these nights. It’s the compete level that I want to see the consistency in. When we get behind a couple goals we can’t hand it in. We have to pump our chests out and battle.”

Evan Cormier got the start and stopped seven of the 12 shots he faced before being pulled after the opening period. David Ovsjannikov came in and stopped 19 of 26 shots in the final 40 minutes.

With the win, the Greyhounds improve to 31-9-0-2 (64 points) while Saginaw drops to 18-20-1-1 (38 points).

The Greyhounds return to action on Friday night when they host the Guelph Storm.

(PHOTO: Soo Greyhounds forward Justin Bailey (centre) celebrates one of his three goals during a game against the Saginaw Spirit played January 14, 2014 at the Essar Centre in Sault Ste. Marie. Kenneth Armstrong/SooToday)


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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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