Special teams haunt Greyhounds on road

Discipline can be haunting and it was for the Soo Greyhounds on Thursday night.

The Greyhounds surrendered three power play goals and a shorthanded marker in a 4-3 overtime loss on the road against the Barrie Colts at the Barrie Molson Centre Thursday in the opening game of a three-game Ontario Hockey League road trip.

“We saw what the outcome is going to be if we’re undisciplined at key moments of a game,” said Greyhounds forward Boris Katchouk.

The Colts tied the game with 1:07 to go in the third period on the man advantage thanks to a goal by Lucas Chiodo and then picked up the win with a power play marker by Zachary Magwood 1:07 into the extra frame.

“We can’t be taking penalties at the end of the game but from puck drop we didn’t play very good hockey and it cost us in the long run,” said Greyhounds veteran Tim Gettinger.

“We can’t be shooting ourselves in the foot and taking penalties and playing shorthanded and it ended up biting us in the end,” Gettinger also said.

The Colts would finish the night 3-for-6 on the man advantage. Joey Keane had the other power play goal for the Colts while Alexey Lipanov had the shorthanded goal and assisted on a pair of Barrie goals. Justin Murray and Ryan Suzuki assisted on a pair of Colts goals each.

Colts goaltender Leo Lazarev stopped 30 shots.

“For the first two periods we weren’t really involved in that hockey game,” said Greyhounds Coach Drew Bannister. Hopefully we’re a lot better (Friday against North Bay) than we were today, we’re going to need to be.”

The message was a simple one following the contest.

“You can’t play two-thirds of one period and expect to win a hockey game,” Bannister said. “We were really good. We came out in the third period and played like we should have. We tied it up quick and got the lead. Even until the end (of the period), we were fine. We had control of the game, then we took two penalties and they tied and won the game.”

Barrett Hayton and Ryan Roth had the other goals for the Greyhounds.

Matthew Villalta made 26 saves for the Greyhounds.

Bannister said he plans to have overage Connor Hicks start Friday’s game in North Bay against the Battalion.

Following Friday’s game in North Bay, the Greyhounds will wrap up the weekend on Sunday afternoon in Sudbury against the Wolves.

In other action around the OHL on Thursday night, Logan Stanley and Nick McHugh had a goal and an assist each as the Kitchener Rangers doubled up the Windsor Spitfires 4-2 in Windsor.

In Peterborough. Jonathan Ang had a goal and two assists as the Peterborough Petes beat the Oshawa Generals 5-2. Dylan Wells made 33 saves for the Petes.