Minus a number of veterans due to injury, the Soo Greyhounds got exactly the effort they needed to make up for it.
A pair of power play goals 29 seconds apart in the third period gave them some breathing room in a 6-3 Ontario Hockey League win over the Saginaw Spirit Wednesday night at the GFL Memorial Gardens.
“That’s probably one of our most complete games all year and probably the first game all year where I can look at all 20 guys and feel like they contributed to the overall impact of the game,” said Greyhounds coach John Dean. “We had 20 guys playing really good hockey tonight.
Saginaw coach Chris Lazary said the game was one in which the Greyhounds made life difficult for his club.
“They didn’t turn the puck over as much as we did,” Lazary said. “They defended the line well. They made smart decisions when there was no play.”
Lazary went on to praise the Greyhounds.dd
“They were good tonight,” Lazary said. “It’s impressive what John Dean and that staff is doing and how hard those guys play.”
Lazary went on to say he felt Dean “is coach of the year at this point.”
“I watch these guys play a lot,” Lazary added. “Their work ethic, the development of the players, it’s impressive.”
Both coaches agreed that the power play goals by the Greyhounds took a lot out of the Spirit in the third period, specifically a goal by Greyhounds captain Bryce McConnell-Barker after Saginaw had made it a one-goal game in the opening minute of the third period.
“That goal to me, that was the beginning of the end,” Dean said.
McConnell-Barker added that “it definitely took a bit out of them.
“Coming back 30 seconds later on another power play and scoring, that doesn’t help,” McConnell-Barker added. “Once we got those two power play goals, we were almost certain the game was ours.”
“He’s been scoring goals like that all year from there ripping the puck,” Lazary said of the McConnell-Barker goal. “We’re trying to get our guys to do the same on the power play in the same spot. He’s got a shot. He takes it and he makes it.”
“That was the end,” Lazary also said about the goal. “You could feel it on the bench.”
The Greyhounds opened the scoring on the power play as Bryce McConnell-Barker got in behind the Saginaw defence, went to the net, and took a pass from Brenden Sirizzotti on the right wing. McConnell-Barker proceeded to slide a backhand 5-hole on Saginaw goaltender Tristan Lennox to make it a 1-0 game at 6:28 of the opening period.
Saginaw tied the game as Hunter Haight grabbed a loose puck behind the Greyhounds net after Theo Hill won a battle. Haight came out from behind the net and tucked the puck past Greyhounds goalie Samuel Ivanov at 11:51
Julian Fantino picked up his first goal as a Greyhound to give the home side a 2-1 lead at 1:36 of the second period. Fantino took a shot from the slot that handcuffed Lennox 5-hole.
Fantino proceeded to make it a 3-1 game at 9:49 when he beat Lennox glove side from the left faceoff circle.
The Greyhounds took a 4-1 lead when Brenden Sirizzotti went to the net and redirected a back-door pass from Christopher Brown past Lennox at 13:48.
With 5.8 seconds to go in the period, the Spirit cut the Sault lead to 4-2 when Dean Loukus redirected a pass from Michael Misa past Ivanov.
Saginaw made it a one-goal game when Zayne Parekh skated into the right faceoff circle and beat Ivanov with a shot short side 58 seconds into the third period.
Bryce McConnell-Barker restored the two-goal lead for the Greyhounds when he took a pass from Kirill Kudryavtsev and beat Lennox with a shot high short side from the left faceoff circle on the power play at 9:07.
Kalvyn Watson then made it a 6-3 game when he converted a pass in tight from Sirizzotti on the right side, also on the power play, 29 seconds later.
McConnell-Barker (two goals, one assist), Sirizzotti (one goal, two assists), and Watson (one goal, two assists) paced the Greyhounds offensively.
Dean called the game Sirizzotti’s best as a Greyhound.
“He showed a lot of leadership,” Dean said. “The way he played away from the puck was exceptional. That allowed him to be very good when he did have the puck.”
Asked about Fantino, Dean said he feels the veteran “brings a lot of different dimensions to the game and I think we haven’t seen all of them yet in one night, but he’s a competitor.”
“He’s got an unbelievable shot,” Dean said. “We’re spending a lot of time encouraging him to use his weapon more and to do it from inside the dots in that danger area. Tonight, he went out of his way to get pucks to the net.”
Kudryavtsev also assisted on a pair of goals for the Greyhounds in the win.
Ivanov stopped 13 shots.
Loukus had a goal and an assist for the Spirit while Lennox stopped 22 shots.
The Greyhounds return to action on Friday night as the team hosts the Flint Firebirds in a 7:07 p.m. start at the GFL Memorial Gardens.
The Greyhounds improve to 14-16-7-1 with the win and sit tied with the Guelph Storm for seventh in the OHL’s Western Conference standings with 39 points. The teams are five points ahead of the ninth-place Kitchener Rangers and two points behind the Flint Firebirds for sixth.
Saginaw falls to 24-15-2-0 with the loss and are six points back of the West Division-leading Windsor Spitfires.
On the injury front for the Greyhounds, goaltender Charlie Schenkel remains out.
The team also played Wednesday’s game without defencemen Connor Toms and Andrew Gibson and forwards Mark Duarte and Ethan Montroy.
Gibson was injured last week in a game on the road against the North Bay Battalion.
Montroy and Duarte were also injured on the Greyhounds’ recent trip, suffering upper body injuries on Sunday afternoon in Sudbury.
Dean said Duarte and Gibson are day-to-day while Montroy is out week-to-week.
Schenkel is inching closer to a return and is currently day-to-day while Toms remains week-to-week.
Injured forward Owen Allard remains out as well. Allard’s expected return is in late-February, early-March.
In addition to having Brodie McConnell-Barker join the team from the Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League’s Soo Thunderbirds with Toms and Gibson out, the team has also recalled forward Dustin Good from the Elmira Sugar Kings.