Near perfect start lifts Greyhounds against Wolves (video, 10 photos)

The start was about as good as they could have hoped for.

The finish might not have been perfect, but the game itself is something for them to build on after the Soo Greyhounds picked up a 6-4 Ontario Hockey League victory over the Sudbury Wolves on Wednesday night at the GFL Memorial Gardens.

The Greyhounds held a 5-1 lead through 33 minutes of the game, but surrendered three of the next four goals in the contest to make things close late.

Greyhounds coach John Dean was extremely pleased with the first half of the game.

“The first 30 minutes were fantastic,” Dean said. “Everyone looked dedicated, very structured and moving the puck around well.”

“That’s something that we want to use as an example of how we want to play,” Dean added.

After a strong start, Dean was less pleased with the final 30 minutes of the game.

“We had lots of good spurts in the last 30 minutes, (but there was) undisciplined hockey; we didn’t have stops and starts and turnovers of pucks,” Dean said.

Dean added that games like Wednesday’s that have no impact on the standings “are mentally tough to play in.”

“It’s very tough,” Dean said. “We talk about trying to be a big picture team and we have things that we need to work on.”

Veteran forward Rory Kerins said the Greyhounds “played just a complete game in the first period and a half.”

“In the defensive zone we were closing quickly, bumping out of our D zone and into the O zone and we kept the puck there too,” Kerins added. “We weren’t taking shots that we didn’t need to take. We just kept it simple an when we do that, that’s what’s going to happen.”

Wolves coach Craig Duncanson called the loss “disheartening.”

“We had a handful of guys that didn’t get off the bus until almost a third of the way through the game,” Duncanson added. “They all feel like they want to be professionals and they want to play the game, you have to take a professional approach and, quite frankly, we didn’t for the first 20 minutes.”

Duncanson added that he felt the team left its five defencemen “out to dry.”

“We weren’t very supportive at either end of the ice early in the game,” Duncanson said. “They did recover, but it was too little, too late against a team that potent.”

The Greyhounds opened the scoring 1:48 in when Cole MacKay redirected a pass at the top of the crease from Kerins on the left wing past Mitchell Weeks on the power play.

On the next shift, rookie defencemen Kirill Kudryavtsev beat Weeks from the high slot stick side 21 seconds later.

Sudbury cut the lead to one as Dominik Jendek grabbed a loose puck in the left circle after a shot in the slot by Alex Assadourian was blocked. Jendek beat Greyhounds starter Samuel Ivanov high glove at 5:24

Owen Allard made it 3-1 Greyhounds at 10:02 when he deflected a point shot in traffic by Caeden Carlisle at the left point past Weeks.

Kerins made it 4-1 Greyhounds 61 seconds into the second period when he beat Weeks high stick side from the slot.

With the home side on the power play, Keegan McMullen extended the lead to 5-1 when he redirected a pass in close from Robert Calisti in the right circle past Weeks at 12:35

“Those goals were two veteran forwards missing their jobs and leaving the guys behind them out to dry and that’s inexcusable,” Duncanson said of the two Sault goals in the middle frame. “I don’t care if you have two games that are relatively meaningless, if you have any pride in your craft, they mean something.”

Evan Konyen cut the Greyhounds lead to 5-2 80 seconds into third period when he took a shot from the left faceoff circle that beat Ivanov high glove side.

With the teams playing four-on-four, Tye Kartye made it 6-2 Greyhounds when he beat Weeks glove side from the left faceoff circle at 7:36 of the third.

The Wolves would make it 6-3 when Ethan Larmand beat Ivanov glove side from the slot at 13:35.

David Goyette cut the lead to 6-4 with the Wolves up two men when he was stopped initially on a redirection before scoring on the rebound at 18:31.

Calisti finished the night with three assists for the Greyhounds.

Allard, McMullen, Kerins, MacKay, and Kudryavtsev had a goal and an assist each for the Sault.

Ivanov finished the night with 26 saves.

Alex Assadourian and Landon McCallum had a pair of assists each for the Wolves. 

Weeks made 43 saves for the Wolves and earned praise from his coach.

“Mitchell is our MVP and he’s a classy man who is a professional and does approach his craft seriously,” Duncanson said. “I’d be scared to think where we would be without him.”

The Greyhounds wrap up the regular season this weekend with a pair of games on the road against the Flint Firebirds.

“We want to end on a high note, and we also know that that’s a team that’s capable of putting a lot of pucks in the net and we don’t want to be in a situation going into the playoffs where we just had a flurry of shots and a flurry of goals against,” Dean said. “There’s some incentive to play well.”

“We want to make sure our habits are good going into the playoffs and we’re feeling good about our game,” Kerins added. “We’re going to continue to do that. Obviously, we’re locked in now, so they don’t mean much statistically in the standings, but to us they mean a lot.”

With Wednesday’s victory, the Greyhounds improve too 38-21-6-1. After a win by the Firebirds over Sarnia on Tuesday night, the Greyhounds will finish the regular season in fourth in the OHL’s Western Conference.

The Wolves fall to 23-37-3-4 with the loss.

Heading into the weekend, Dean said the team will look at potentially resting players in games as well.

On the injury front heading into the games against the Firebirds, Dean said there is potential that Marco Mignosa could get into the lineup.

Meanwhile, Tyler Savard, who has missed games recently due to injury, could also get back into the lineup and Jordan D’Intino, who missed Wednesday’s game due to illness, could find his way back into the lineup as well