Special teams haunt Greyhounds in loss to Knights

Special teams have been a difference-maker for the Soo Greyhounds in games this year.

On Friday night, it was a difference and ultimately cost the team a game.

The London Knights went 3-for-4 on the power play and came away with a 6-3 Ontario Hockey League win over the Greyhounds Friday at Budweiser Gardens in London.

The Knights capitalized on a pair of power plays in the opening period to take a 2-0 lead before adding another on the man advantage late in the second period in the victory.

“It’s hard to come back from those,” said veteran forward Gavin Hayes.

Asked about the two early power play goals by the Knights, Dean said “I thought it was interesting that they were on the power play twice in six minutes, especially in the way the game was managed.”

“It’s difficult to post a team a 2-0 start,” Dean also said. “I was a little disappointed with the fact that they had two power plays to begin with.”

The penalties included a boarding call on Kirill Kudryavtsev in the opening minute and a slashing call after the end of a play on Julian Fantino 6:37 into the game.

Though the Greyhounds went 1-for 4 on the power play, the team struggled during a major penalty to London’s Sawyer Boulton early in the second period.

The Knights forward was given a match penalty for slew-footing following a hit on Greyhounds forward Christopher Brown.

“We can’t find a way to score on the five-minute major, which could have been a turning point for us,” Dean said initially.

Dean said he felt when the team didn’t capitalize in the first half of the penalty “we got a little discouraged and got away from gameplan a little bit.”

Dean agreed that it was also “a five-minute we need to score on to get back into the game.”

Added forward Marco Mignosa, “you could say that it shifted the momentum a bit.”

Dean called the game overall “a tough night.”

“The style of game and the way it was managed is difficult for our guys to play in,” Dean added. “It’s not the performance we wanted, but I saw a lot of good things out of different guys that I now know that, when push comes to show, they’re going to show up.”

London opened the scoring on the power play 93 seconds into the hockey game as Ruslan Gazizov beat Greyhounds starter Charlie Schenkel glove side from the left circle on the power play.

The Russian forward made it a 2-0 game at 8:23 as he beat Schenkel with a second power play goal on a shot from the high slot that beat the Sault netminder high glove side.

The Greyhounds managed to get on the board at 17:30 of the opening period as Brodie McConnell-Barker went to the net and took a pass from Gavin Hayes on the right wing before beating London goaltender Michael Simpson with a backhand 5-hole.

Gazizov completed the hattrick in the second period following a Greyhounds turnover in the London zone. Gazizov broke down the right win and beat Schenkel short side from the right faceoff circle to make it a 3-1 game.

After not capitalizing on a five-minute power play, the Greyhounds took advantage of another power play in the middle period as Jacob Frasca redirected a pass in tight from Hayes in the right circle at 11:22 to cut the London lead to 3-2.

Gazizov scored his fourth of the night at 14:04 of the second period, beating Schenkel from the right circle on a one-timer after a pass from Denver Barkey on the power play to make it 4-2 Knights.

London made it 5-2 in the third period when Easton Cowan hit Jacob Julien with a pass going to the net and Julien beat Schenkel on the redirection just 1:11 into the period.

The Greyhounds added another goal at 15:36 as Bryce McConnell-Barker skated into the right faceoff circle in the London zone after stepping around a London defender near the blueline. McConnell-Barker beat Simpson from the faceoff circle, making it a 5-3 game.

The Knights capped off the scoring when Kaleb Lawrence scored into an empty net with 3:31 to go.

Hayes assisted on all three goals for the Greyhounds in the loss.

Schenkel made 25 saves for the Sault.

In addition to the four-goal night for Gazizov, Julien had a goal and an assist for the Knights while Barkey and Cowan assisted on a pair of goals each for London.

Simpson made 33 saves.

The Greyhounds wrap up the road portion of the regular season schedule on Saturday night in Owen Sound against the Attack.

With the loss, the Greyhounds fall to 42-17-3-2 on the season while London improves to 47-14-1-3.

The game had standings implications in the Western Conference for both teams.

For the Greyhounds, the team sits five points ahead of the Kitchener Rangers for third in the conference after the Rangers beat Owen Sound on Friday. Both teams have five games remaining.

London remains two points ahead of the Saginaw Spirit for first in the conference after Saginaw came back to beat the Guelph Storm in overtime Friday.

With the win, Saginaw moves seven points ahead of the Greyhounds for first in the West Division. With both teams having four games remaining in the regular season, another win by the Spirit or a loss by the Greyhounds would clinch the division title for Saginaw.