Consistency crucial after Greyhounds win over Petes

It was a step in the right direction, but consistency is the crucial next part of it.

Following a pair of lacklustre efforts last weekend on the road, the Soo Greyhounds skated to a 6-2 Ontario Hockey League victory over the Peterborough Petes Saturday night at the GFL Memorial Gardens.

Greyhounds coach John Dean called the win “a good game for us.”

“We’ve struggled all year following up good first periods with good seconds,” Dean added. “We did that tonight. The only game management I didn’t like was probably our last power play at the end. That, game management-wise was tough. Our discipline was a little bit lacking at the end of the game.”

“Other than that, it’s a really complete sixty for us,” Dean also said. “We’ve been trying to find a more consistent brand of hockey and tonight, we found it.”

Expecting more of his team of late, Dean said recently that the team needed to decide what type of team they wanted to be, asking “Do we want to be a championship-calibre team do we want to be (one) that happens to win some big games here and there and that’s good enough?”

After Saturday’s win, Dean said he saw a lot from his team.

“I saw a lot more,” Dean said.

“That got wiped away today as far as I’m concerned,” Dean added. “They showed exactly what kind of brand of hockey they want to play.”

Asked how the Greyhounds carry Saturday’s effort into a Sunday afternoon contest against the Kitchener Rangers, Dean said “consistency is king.”

Rookie Brady Martin added “we have to be consistent with it.”

“We obviously can’t have bad games and off games,” Martin also said. “We have to keep going through the full sixty minutes.”

Peterborough coach Rob Wilson said following the loss that, despite not liking the opening period from his club, there were some positives for the Petes in the loss.

“In the second, for 14 or 15 minutes, we were playing pretty good,” Wilson said. “I didn’t like our first period at all.

“The Sault was so much better than us in the first,” Wilson added. “In the second though, we regrouped and had some really good moments. A little bounce here or there, maybe we make it 3-2.”

Wilson added that he felt his team rebounded in the third period after the Greyhounds scored a pair of goals late in the second period to take a 5-1 lead through 40 minutes.

With a young roster, Wilson called the game a good learning experience for a team that dressed six 2007 birth year players in the game.

“These guys are getting lots of benefits for sure,” Wilson said. “At the time, it’s frustrating for sure. It’s frustrating for me. We make silly mistakes, which is normal or bad reads, or the wrong decision in the D-zone, but we’ll learn from it.”

The Greyhounds opened the scoring 3:59 into the game as Justin Cloutier beat Peterborough starter Liam Sztuska from the left circle on a one-timer. Sztuska couldn't get cross-crease in time after the pass from Kirill Kudryavtsev to Cloutier.

Kudryavtsev made it a 2-0 game just under three minutes later as he beat Sztuska from the top of the left circle through traffic.

Peterborough got on the board at 14:43 as Ryder McIntyre got in behind the Sault defenceman, took a pass from Jonathan Melee and proceeded to beat Greyhounds goaltender Landon Miller 5-hole.

Julian Fantino restored the Greyhounds two-goal lead just 1:27 later as he beat Sztuska from the high slot high glove side.

The Greyhounds took a 4-1 lead with 5:09 to go in the second period when Andrew Gibson beat Sztuska from the slot on a one-timer after a pass from Martin in the right faceoff circle.

With 2:03 to go in the period, Christopher Brown grabbed a loose puck off a faceoff in the right circle and proceeded to beats Sztuska from in tight to make it 5-1.

Braydon McCallum pulled Peterborough to within three with a power play goal at 7:07 of the third period. McCallum beat Miller from the slot six seconds into a Petes man advantage.

Jordan D’Intino made it 6-2 Greyhounds at 12:43 when he broke down the right wing and beat Sztuska from the right faceoff circle up under the crossbar.

Martin paced the Greyhounds offensively with three assists in the victory while Fantino, Kudryavtsev, D’Intino, and Brown added a goal and an assist each.

Miller made 20 saves.

Melee assisted on both Peterborough goals in the loss.

Sztuska stopped 36 shots.

With the win, the Greyhounds improve to 37-16-2-1 on the season. With 77 points, the Greyhounds sit six points behind the Saginaw Spirit for top spot in the West Division. The Spirit also won on Saturday night, beating the Brantford Bulldogs 5-4 in overtime.

Peterborough falls to 17-32-6-1 with the loss and trail the Barrie Colts by eight points for the final playoff spot in the OHL’s Eastern Conference after the Colts picked up a win Saturday night.

Sunday’s game against the Rangers, a 2:07 p.m. start, continues a four-game homestand for the Greyhounds that will see the team play a pair of games next weekend as well.

Rookie forward Travis Hayes left the game in the third period for the Greyhounds due to injury.

Dean said following the game that details on the injury were limited, but said the rookie winger suffered an upper body injury after taking a hit along the boards in the Peterborough zone in the final minutes of the contest.

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