By Brad Coccimiglio
SooToday.com
Saturday, November 28, 2009

Complete efforts are all Denny Lambert is looking for.

The Greyhounds battled on Friday night but came up short in a 5-4 loss to the Plymouth Whalers in a game that saw them trailing 4-1 midway through the second period. In the game’s final 24 minutes, the Greyhounds outplayed the Whalers and outscored their division rivals 3-1.

“You’re supposed to play that way for a full sixty minutes and it’s a lesson that we’ve got to learn,” said Lambert. “We need to come out and make sure we’re prepared to go right from the drop of the puck and make sure that we’re ready to compete.”

Similarly to Lambert, Whalers coach Mike Vellucci was pleased only with some of the effort of his team.

“I thought we played pretty good early on,” said Vellucci. “We got thrown back a little bit when they disallowed that goal and a little off our game…we would have established a lot of momentum. Once we went up 4-1 and they made the goalie change I thought they took the momentum away from us.”

The disallowed goal came just over five minutes into the game when Whalers forward A.J. Jenks hit Greyhounds rookie Trevor Morbeck from behind in the Greyhounds zone. The hit left Morbeck bloodied on the play but initially continued and led to a goal by Plymouth’s Austin Levi. After the four officials coming together, the goal was waved off and Jenks sent to the penalty box to serve a double minor for his hit on Morbeck.

Greyhounds defenseman Michael Quesnele was given a 10-minute misconduct on the play for arguing the call and then handed a game misconduct as well after continually arguing the play.

“We were a little scattered out there at times without (Quesnele) out there calming everything down,” said Lambert. “The rest of them did an ok job.”

Dylan King had a goal and an assist for the Greyhounds in the loss. Jake Carrick, Vern Cooper and Daniel Catenacci also scored for the Greyhounds. Robin Lehner got the started but was pulled after surrendering four goals on 16 shots. Bryce O’Hagan stopped 11 of shot shots in relief.

Jamie Devane and Garrett Meurs had a goal and an assist each for the Whalers while Josh Brittain and Joe Gaynor set up a pair of goals each. Jenks, Tyler Seguin and Myles McCauley also scored for the Whalers in the win.

The win improves the Whalers record to 15-12-0-0 and pulls them into a third-place tie in the OHL’s West Division with the Greyhounds, who hold a record of 14-12-1-1.

Both teams are back in action on Saturday night. The Whalers host the Kingston Frontenacs while the Greyhounds host the Sarnia Sting.