Defensive struggles bury Greyhounds in return to action

Spend any amount of time around a hockey team and you’re guaranteed to hear a coach talk about their team needing to be engaged.

There have been a lot of games where Soo Greyhounds coach John Dean credited his players for being engaged and showing a high compete level, even in losses. Wednesday night wasn’t one of those games.

The Greyhounds returned to action from the Christmas break Wednesday and dropped a 7-4 Ontario Hockey League decision to the Flint Firebirds at the Dort Financial Centre.

“It’s okay to not have your legs, it’s okay to not have your ‘A’ game, but to not be engaged is unacceptable,” Dean said.

It was a game in which the Greyhounds struggled mightily managing the puck defensively.

“The back end tonight managed the puck extremely poorly,” Dean said. “We weren’t able to transport the puck north and get the puck into our forwards hand nearly enough. A lot of turnovers cost us some Grade A chances against. We had four or five passengers up front, which is half your forward corps. You can’t play D that way anymore.”

“You can factor in rust, but we don’t need to make excuses on a night like tonight,” added overage forward Kalvyn Watson. “We need to be way better defensively. Our D zone was pretty sloppy, everyone, including myself.”

The loss saw the Greyhounds waste what was a quick start in their return as the team opened the scoring 32 seconds in on a goal by Kirill Kudryavtsev.

“It should have been a source of energy for us,” Dean said.

The Greyhounds played much of the game short a defenceman after Connor Toms left the contest in the opening period with a leg injury.

The team then lost overage defenceman Ryan Thompson for 17 minutes after the veteran got an instigator penalty in a fight with Flint’s Owen Pitters.

Dean said the Greyhounds defensive struggles started long before that.

“We started off early mismanaging the puck,” Dean said. “Then, when we had to play with the four, we could have doubled down on it and we tried to encourage the guys to stretch the ice out against Flint, but, with four guys especially, we have to do a better job of managing the puck. It was a tough situation for us, but I don’t think we handled it very well.”

Flint coach Ted Dent was pleased the compete level of his team in the win.

“We had a lot of chances in the second period and really capitalized on some turnovers and transition,” Dent said in an interview with the Firebirds Hockey Network. “We could have had two or three more goals in the second period.”

The Greyhounds jumped out to a 1-0 in the opening minute as Kudryavtsev skated into the Flint zone down the left wing and cut around a Flint defenceman before sliding a backhand past Firebirds goaltender Will Cranley.

Braeden Kressler tied the game at 8:33 when he took a pass on the left wing from Gavin Hayes and beat Greyhounds starter Samuel Ivanov glove side.

The Greyhounds took a 2-1 lead when Bryce McConnell-Barker went to the net and beat Cranley with a shot stick side after taking a pass from Kalvyn Watson at 11:22. Watson took a pass from Kudryavtsev after a turnover to start the play.

Flint got the game back on even terms when Coulson Pitre was stopped initially by Ivanov on a partial break before Zacharie Giroux took a pass from Amadeus Lombardi on the rebound to score Flint’s second goal of the night.

Hayes gave Flint the lead for the first time early in the second period when he took a pass in the slot from Dmitry Kuzmin and beat Ivanov at 1:42.

Pitre made it a 4-2 game at 6:49 when he beat Ivanov on a partial break while battling Greyhounds defenceman Andrew Gibson on his way to the goal.

Tristan Bertucci made it a 5-2 game at 3:49 of the third period when he beat Ivanov from the left faceoff after a faceoff win by Ethan Hay deep in the Greyhounds zone.

Jordan D’Intino cut the Flint lead back down to two when he beat Cranley from the slot on the power play five minutes into the period. D’Intino beat Cranley after the Flint netminder initially stopped a shot from the right wing by Marco Mignosa.

Flint took a 6-3 lead when Hayes one-timed a pass from Kressler past Ivanov moments after a turnover by Gibson in the Greyhounds zone.

Kudryavtsev made it 6-4 2:42 later when he took a short pass from Tyler Savard on the left wing and proceeded to beat Cranley 5-hole from the left circle.

Hayes capped off the scoring with an empty net goal with 1:04 to go in the game.

Kudryavtsev paced the Greyhounds with a pair of goals and an assist in the loss.

Dean called Kudryavtsev “the best player on the ice tonight.”

Watson added a pair of assists for the Greyhounds in the game.

“He logged huge minutes because we had four D going and it may be one of his best games all year,” Dean added. “It’s too bad he didn’t get rewarded with the team getting two points.”

“For him to excel so well when the group around him is struggling, it’s just very impressive,” Dean also said.

Ivanov stopped 38 shots in the loss.

“He’s got to make some bigger saves for us,” Dean said of Ivanov. “I’m definitely not pinning the game on him. There’s no doubt about it, he needs to help us out when we’re struggling.”

Hayes finished the night with three goals and an assist for Flint while Kressler added a gfoal and a pair of assists.

Riley Piercey also had a three-point night for Flint, assisting on three goals.

Pitre and Bertucci chipped in with a goal and an assist each.

Cranley stopped 34 shots in the victory.

With the loss, the Greyhounds fall to 10-13-5-4. The team also falls into ninth in the OHL’s Western Conference standings after the Guelph Storm picked up a 5-3 win over the Windsor Spitfires Wednesday night to move a point ahead of the Greyhounds, who have a game in hand on the Storm.

The Greyhounds return to action on Thursday night on the road when the team faces the Saginaw Spirit at the Dow Event Centre in Saginaw.

On the injury front for the Greyhounds, Dean said Toms’ status was up in the air after the injury.

His status for Thursday’s game is up in the air.

With Wednesday’s win, the Firebirds snapped a three-game losing skid and move to 17-12-2-1. Flint remains tied with the Owen Sound Attack in the Western Conference after the latter picked up a 3-2 overtime win over the Kitchener Rangers on Wednesday night.