Greyhounds drop shootout with Kitchener

The Soo Greyhounds battled the defending Memorial Cup championships hard but some costly third period mistakes allowed the Kitchener Rangers to sneak away with a win.

Tied at 2-2 heading into the third period, the Rangers scored four times in the frame to gather a 6-4 win over the Greyhounds in Ontario Hockey League action in front of 2,687 fans at Memorial Gardens on Friday night.

Adam Keefe and David Clarkson scored two goals each to lead the Rangers while Jeff Larsh scored twice for the Hounds and Scott Dobben continued his strong play with a goal and an assist.

"We played with everything we had today and didn't quit but some bad, costly errors on the back end cost us late in the game," said Greyhounds head coach Marty Abrams.

"There is no excuse for it. We had eight defenseman dressed tonight and we couldn't get a couple of guys to finish it off for us. Our turnovers were costly and it's a disappointment to come away with no points."

After Keefe put the Rangers ahead in the first period, Dobben scored his 21st of the year on the power play to tie the score at 1-1 after Tyler Kennedy fed him with pass on the open side.

The Greyhounds scored twice in the game on the power play which has struggled this season. Colt King did a fine job all game of planting himself in front of the Rangers net with the man advantage causing all sorts of vision problems for goalie Carlo DiRienzo.

Clarkson gave the Rangers another one-goal cushion before Larsh scored his first of the night as Dobben fed an open Larsh a pass from behind the net to tie the score at 2-2.

The Greyhounds thought they had taken a lead a minute later but the goal was quickly waved off as referee Ian Smith assessed a pair of coincidental minors before the puck entered the net.

The third period quickly turned into shootout as Kitchener scored two goals by Andre Benoit and Keefe 58 seconds apart to grab a 4-2 lead.

But the Greyhounds continued to battle and pulled to within one on Jeff Doyle's 15th goal of the season with 5:39 remaining.

Clarkson sealed the win moments later while short handed when he hacked the puck off the stick of Martin Tuma and beat Greyhound goaltender Jakub Cech with the game winner.

Larsh answered back seconds later on the same power play to pull the Hounds to within a goal once again but Paul McFarland added an empty net goal for the Rangers, who outshot the Greyhounds 32-30.

"I think Kitchener's depth really paid off tonight. (Defenseman) Benoit played about 40 minutes out there and was solid and they also got great production out of their forwards. We really only had nine forwards dressed but they gave us a great effort, " said Abrams.

The loss drops the Greyhounds, who have played four games more than any other team in the league, to 19-21-1-1 for 40 points. The team reamins three points behind Sarnia and Plymouth for first place and three ahead of Windsor for third spot.

Kitchener improves to 20-9-6-1 and have lost only once in their past 17 games.

Both teams were missing impact players as Jeff Carter for the Greyhounds and Kitchener's Mike Richards and Petr Kanko are playing at the World Junior Hockey Championships in Finland. The Greyhounds were also missing forward Chris Lawrence, who is playing at the World Under-17 Hockey Championships in Newfoundland.

The Greyhounds return to action on Sunday as the Windsor Spitfires visit for a key West Division battle beginning at 2 p.m. at Memorial Gardens.

In other OHL action on Friday, Josh Disher turned aside 24 shots as Erie shutout Oshawa 1-0. Former Greyhound Brett Trudell scored in Guelph's 2-1 victory over Peterborough while Rafal Martynowski scored the winner as Sudbury rallied to beat Windsor 2-1.

Dale Good scored once and added an assist as Toronto St. Michael's beat Mississauga 3-2. Sault native Blair Jarrett scored for Mississauga.

Michael Henrich scored twice to lead Brampton past Ottawa 4-3 while Brad Horan scored three times and Eric Himelfarb twice to pace Kingston past Belleville 5-2.

*** PAPISTA GASSED IN SAGINAW:

Saginaw Spirit owner Dick Garber relieved team president and general manager Costa Papista of his duties with the team on Friday. Garber will assume to role of president and head coach Moe Mantha will take over as general manager until replacements can be found.

"I gave this a lot of thought and decided it was the most humane thing to do at this time. It was clear that we were not going to re-sign Papista when his contract came up for renewal at the end of this season," Garber told the BayToday.ca

*** LAWRENCE SCORING FOR ONTARIO:

Chris Lawrence has found his offensive stroke with Team Ontario at the World Under-17 Championships as the 16 year-old centre scored twice and added an assist to led Team Ontario to a 6-0 win over Russia on Friday.

Lawrence picked up his first goal at the tournament in Team Ontario's 5-5 tie with Team Pacific on Thursday. Through four games, Lawrence has recorded three goals and four assists for seven points.

Greyhound goaltending prospect Kyle Gajewski made 21 saves for the shutout against Russia.

Team Ontario at 3-0-1 has qualified for semi-final action on Saturday. The gold and bronze medal games will be played on Sunday.