Katchouk seals Greyhounds road win (5 photos)

It took just 43 seconds for the Soo Greyhounds to get into the win column on the road on Friday night.

Katchouk took a pass in the slot from Conor Timmins and his shot beat North Bay Battalion netminder Julian Sime low glove side to give the Greyhounds a 2-1 overtime victory at the North Bay Memorial Gardens.

“I definitely give credit to Timmins,” Katchouk said. “He’s the one that set it up. I found a little quiet area to take the pass. (The shot) was a knuckler.”

Timmins won a battle along the end boards moments after Katchouk missed the net on a breakaway to get the puck to the veteran forward.

“I just wanted to win my battle and get the puck to Boris because I knew he would have a good scoring chance,” Timmins said of the game-winner.

North Bay Coach Stan Butler felt the game-winner was a byproduct of a missed call earlier in the shift.

"Cam Dineen gets tripped and the referee doesn't call an obvious penalty and (the Greyhounds) go down to the other end and score," Butler said.

Timmins assisted on both Greyhounds goals in the victory. Hayden Verbeek also scored

Overage netminder Connor Hicks made 39 saves to pick up his first win in a Greyhounds uniform.

“My first outing wasn’t my best performance so coming in today and getting a win is pretty special,” Hicks said.

Hicks admitted he felt comfortable from warmup and into the game, which saw him turn aside 23 shots in the second period among the 39 stops.

“I’m getting back to mid-season form and right from warmup, I felt like I would be good,” Hicks said. “As soon as I stepped on the ice and got that first shot, I felt really confident.”

“We needed a game like that from him,” Bannister said of the overage netminder. “I’m happy for him and I think that’s going to help his confidence.”

Bannister admitted that, as a team, the Greyhounds are looking to be better but there were some positives from Saturday’s win.

“I liked our first period and I think we did a lot of good things but we killed our momentum with penalties,” Bannister said. “In the second period, we didn’t execute very well and we were sloppy but (North Bay) did a good job. They hemmed us in. They seemed to be above us every time and right in our faces when we had the puck on our stick. A lot of our top players seemed to be skating better in the third and when you’re skating better, teams are going to take penalties against us. We had opportunities on the power play and if we score early on in the power play, maybe it’s a different game and we open it up a little bit.”

Dineen had the lone goal for the Battalion while Sime made 27 saves.

“Defensively we played pretty good,” Butler said. “They’re a very talented team. They’ve got good offensive players and play at a good pace. For the most part, I don’t think we gave them a lot of scoring chances.”

The Greyhounds will enjoy an off-day on Saturday before wrapping up the weekend in Sudbury on Sunday afternoon against the Wolves.

In other action around the OHL on Friday night, Kaden Fulcher stopped all 25 shots he faced as the Hamilton Bulldogs blanked the Mississauga Steelheads 2-0 on the road. Mississauga goaltender Emanuel Vella made 32 saves.

In St. Catharines, Danial Singer had a goal and an assist as the Niagara IceDogs beat the Erie Otters 4-1.

In Saginaw, Evan Cormier made 27 saves as the Saginaw Spirit blanked the Ottawa 67’s 4-0. Cole Coskey had a pair of goals while Damien Giroux chipped in with a goal and an assist for the Spirit.

In Sudbury, Kade Landry had a goal and two assists as the Barrie Colts beat the Sudbury Wolves 4-1. Jason Willms added a pair of goals for the Colts.

In Guelph, Alexey Tropochenko’s second goal of the game was the game-winner as the Guelph Storm beat the Oshawa Generals 5-4. Tropochenko finished the day with two goals and an assist. Danil Antropov and Nick Wong had two goals each for Oshawa.

In London, Eemeli Rasanen had two goals and two assists as the Kingston Frontenacs blanked the London Knights 5-0. Mario Peccia stopped 24 shots for the shutout.

In Kitchener, Ethan Szypula scored 1:26 into overtime to give the Owen Sound Attack a 4-3 win over the Kitchener Rangers. Sean Durzi had a goal and an assist for the Attack.

With files from Chris Dawson (BayToday)