Colaiacovo shuts down Greyhound shooters

The Soo Greyhounds desperately needed two points but Paulo Colaiacovo wasn't prepared to give any away.

Backed by a solid 39 save performance by Colaiacovo, the Barrie Colts captured a 3-1 decision over the Greyhounds in Ontario Hockey League action in front of 2,882 fans at Memorial Gardens.

After Jeff Doyle snapped a shot past Colaiacovo on the power play in the first period, the Barrie netminder closed the door the rest of the way.

The struggling Greyhounds are clinging to their playoff lives and have not won since a big 8-6 victory over London on Jan. 11th. Since, the Greyhounds have lost three times and have settled for ties in two winnable games.

The Greyhounds, at 21-25-3-1 for 46 points, remain a point ahead of the idle Windsor Spitfires, who have three games in hand, for the eighth and final playoff spot in the Western Conference with 18 games to play.

The team played well enough to win on Sunday but Greyhounds head coach Marty Abrams felt that his team was beaten by the best goaltender in the league.

"You can't play much better than that and we had very few breakdowns but when we did they ended up in the net," said Abrams. "We worked real hard out there and we didn't get any breaks.

"I have said all year that (Colaiacovo) is the best goaltender in the league and he proved why he played 62 games last year and he has played in 43 this year. He is on a different level and he is the Jeff Carter of goaltenders in this league."

After Doyle gave the Hounds a 1-0 lead, Chad Thompson tied the game less than three minutes later when his backhand shot trickled through Greyhound goaltender Kevin Druce.

Hunter Tremblay scored the game winner for the Colts in the second period when he knocked in a loose puck for his seventh of the season. Mark Langdon finished the scoring and foiled any comeback attempt when his shot snuck between the legs of Druce with 3:51 remaining.

Druce stopped 29 of 32 Barrie shots and made some big stops including two huge stops on Bryan Little in close in the second period.

Colaiacovo, the game's first star, made his best stops down the stretch when he foiled Tyler Kennedy with under seven minutes left and made two big stops on Reg Thomas and Doyle during a flurry with the Hounds pressing late in the third.

The Greyhounds dressed prospect Kyle Gajewski as the backup goaltender for the game as the gold medal winner with Team Ontario at the World Under 17 Hockey Challenge was in town with his teammates from the Chatham Maroons Junior B club. The Maroons were in town to tour the campus at Lake Superior State University.

"We want to make it quite clear that this has nothing to do with Kevin's or Jakub's (Cech) performance," said Abrams. "We have been planning this for quite a while now because Chatham was up here on a campus tour at Lake State and we wanted to get him in for backup role and honour his performance at the Under 17 championships."

The Greyhounds conclude a three-game home stand on Wednesday as the Plymouth Whalers visit Memorial Gardens for a 7 p.m. start.

Following the game, the Greyhounds will begin a four-game road swing that will begin with a single weekend contest on Friday in Sudbury. The team will then head out on a three-game West Division trip through Windsor, Sarnia and Plymouth beginning February 5th.

"We have been working hard but we have not been getting any breaks. A concern of ours heading into the next 18 games is whether or not we are going to get any breaks and get some wins because we couldn't ask for more than we are asking from them now," said Abrams.

In other OHL action on Sunday, John Mitchell scored twice and added an assist as Plymouth beat Saginaw 3-2. Liam Reddox scored twice and setup another as Peterborough doubled the Sudbury Wolves 6-3 and Stefan Ruzicka scored the game winner as Owen Sound beat Brampton 4-2.

Martin St. Pierre scored twice including the overtime winner as a shorthanded Guelph Storm, who dressed only 15 skaters including only four defenseman, defeated the Ottawa 67's 3-2. Dan Turple made 26 saves as Oshawa shutout Kingston 4-0.

In London, the goaltenders put on a show as Josh Disher stopped 54 of 56 shots for the Erie Otters and Ryan MacDonald stopped 39 or 41 shots for the Knights in a 2-2 draw.