Greyhounds fall behind early, lose in shootout

It’s something they want to correct, but a less-than-ideal start brought out the best in the Soo Greyhounds on Friday night.

After falling behind 3-0 and trailing 3-1 midway through the game, the Greyhounds came back to force overtime before dropping a 5-4 shootout decision to the Kingston Frontenacs Friday in Ontario Hockey League action at the GFL Memorial Gardens.

The Greyhounds scored three times in the final 13:09 of regulation time for force overtime before a shootout goal by Maddox Callens gave the visitors the vistory.

It was a game where the Greyhounds surrendered more chances by the Frontenacs than they would have liked, despite limiting Kingston to just 15 shots through 65 minutes.

“We limit them to 15 shots against, but of those 15 shots, we gave up some significant, like eight or nine of those, are really high quality chances against,” Greyhounds coach John Dean said. “The goals that they did score were very preventable. A loft of credit to our guys. I wasn’t loving our first 25 minutes. It wasn’t bad hockey; it just wasn’t good hockey against a team that played the night before. The second half of the game, we took over pretty nicely. We have to find a way to win in overtime.”

Asked about the start, specifically following what was a disappointing effort on Wednesday night, Dean said he struggles to find a specific reason why starts have been tough for the Greyhounds this season.

“I wish I could put my finger on it,” Dean said. “We just seem to really bring it when our backs are against the wall. I wish we would have that mentality from the drop of the puck.”

The third period and overtime saw the Greyhounds outshoot Kingston by a 30-4 margin.

“We just pressed really hard,” Dean said. “We limited our turnovers. We were turning over the puck a ton in the first two periods from the tops of the circles to the blue in our own end. We did it a few times in the third, but for the most part, we carried play. The guys turned a switch on and carried play in the offensive zone, got to dangerous areas. We owned the puck in the offensive zone as opposed to slapping it away. We looked very structured and had purpose. That’s big for us.”

Having entered a stretch without two key defencemen in Ben Roger and Alec Belanger due to injury, the Frontenacs have played some games with five defencemen. On Friday, forward Paul Hughes dropped back to give the Frontenacs six defencemen for the game.

“It’s tough with what we’ve got going on on our backend right now,” Kingston coach Luca Caputi said. “Our group is just resilient, and they battled. I can’t ask for more. When we get our guys back on the backend there, we’re a different team. For right now, we’re fighting for our lives most nights. It was nice to get the win.”

Asked about Hughes dropping back, Caputi credited the veteran forward for his willingness to drop back.

Mitchell Brooks opened the scoring for the Frontenacs as he deflected a shot by Jacob Battaglia past Greyhounds starter Samuel Ivanov at 13:48 of the opening period.

Kingston took a 2-0 lead at 18:47 of the opening period when Ivanov came out to play the puck and turned it over to Kingston’s Francesco Arcuri, who proceeded to score on the open net.

After getting stopped on a penalty shot earlier in the period, Arcuri picked up his second goal of the night on a breakaway where he beat Ivanov glove side.

Justin Cloutier got the Greyhounds on the board at 11:17 of the second period when he broke down the left wing and beat Frontenacs goaltender Ivan Zhigalov with a shot high short side.

The Frontenacs made it 4-1 just 1:09 into the third period when Linus Hemstrom beat Ivanov with a shot from the left faceoff circle high glove side.

With the Greyhounds on the power play, Jordan D’Intino made it 4-2 as he redirected a pass from Mark Duarte past Zhigalov at 6:51.

Bryce McConnell-Barker then cut the Kingston lead to 4-3 when he took a pass from Kalvyn Watson off to the left of the Kingston goal and potted it past Zhigalov.

Tyler Savard tied the game for the Greyhounds with 1:03 to go in regulation time when he deflected a shot by McConnell-Barker past Zhigalov to force the extra frame.

Despite outshooting the Frontenacs 7-0 through the five-minute overtime, the Greyhounds didn’t capitalize and the visitors took advantage in the shootout.

Savard and McConnell-Barker had a goal and an assist each for the Greyhounds offensively while Kirill Kudryavtsev assisted on a pair of goals.

Ivanov made 11 saves in the loss.

Zhigalov stopped 44 shots and two of three Greyhounds shooters in the shootout for Kingston.

“He was really busy throughout the night,” Caputi said. “Probably for half the night it was more of an even game, a defensive battle. They got down a couple and started to come and started to play the brand they want to play. He had to make some huge saves for us to have a change to win the game.”

Arcuri paced the Frontenacs offensively with a pair of goals and an assist in the win.

The loss drops the Greyhounds record to 5-8-4-3 while Kingston improves to 10-9-1-1.

The Greyhounds return to action Sunday in the final game of a three-game homestand. The team will face the London Knights in the third meeting of the season between the two clubs and second in a week after the Knights picked up a 4-2 win in London last Sunday.

The Greyhounds received word Thursday that rookie forward Connor Clattenburg was suspended for three games after receiving a match penalty for cross checking during last Sunday’s game in London.

Clattenburg sat out Wednesday’s game against Flint and will serve the final game on Sunday afternoon. The 17-year-old is eligible to return to the lineup when the Greyhounds open up a three-game road trip next Thursday in Erie against the Otters.

In other league news on Friday, the OHL announced the postponement of a pair of games involving the Otters scheduled for this weekend.

A winter storm rolling through the New York state area forced the league to postpone Erie’s games against the Saginaw Spirit on Friday night in addition to their game Saturday against the Ottawa 67’s. Some major interstates in New York had been shut down as a result of the storm, which began on Thursday.