For a team looking to make the playoffs, there’s no question it was a tough blow, especially against the team they’re chasing.
Needing a win, the Soo Greyhounds fell to the Kitchener Rangers on Sunday afternoon by a 3-0 score at the Kitchener Memorial Auditorium in Ontario Hockey League action.
The loss puts the Rangers six points ahead of the Greyhounds for the final playoff spot in the Western Conference with a pair of games in hand.
Despite the result and the playoff implications, the Greyhounds are looking at the positives as the calendar prepares to move into March.
“There’s a lot of positives to come from that game,” overage forward Kalvyn Watson said. “Schenky (goaltender Charlie Schenkel) stood on his head. We played, for the most part, a pretty good game.”
Watson also said that “the way the guys competed tonight showed that we can stick with any team in this league when we play the right brand of hockey.”
Greyhounds coach John Dean called the game “a heck of an effort by our guys.”
“Right from the drop of the puck, we looked like a very interested, competitive group,” Dean added.
“Hockey players know when they’ve put in a good effort and they know when they haven’t and they can be proud of their effort tonight,” Dean also said.
A perfect day from goaltender Marco Costantini played a role for the Rangers as the overage netminder was perfect in the win, stopping all 40 shots he faced.
Rangers coach Mike McKenzie called Costantini a difference-maker in the win.
“He was unbelievable,” McKenzie said in an interview with RogersTv. “We’ve run into hot goalies lately and it was night to have a hot one of our own tonight. That’s exactly why we made the trade for him, for a big game like this, for him to come in and add an element of poise to our team.”
At the other end, Dean called Schenkel, who stopped 35 shots, “nothing short of exceptional tonight.”
“I felt like I was reading the play really well,” Schenkel said. “Kitchener likes to go east-west and they’re a good team off the rush. Our coaches did a great job on the pre-scout and I felt like I knew what to expect.”
Schenkel also said he liked what he saw from the team in front of him in the game.
“Our whole team was playing aggressive in the D zone and blocking shots and putting it all on the line,” Schenkel said. “They were playing their heart out.”
McKenzie was critical of his team in the win.
“We gave up too much defensively tonight and (Costantini) was there for every one of them,” McKenzie said.
“We lost too many battles on the wall today,” McKenzie also said. “We made some poor decisions with the puck, especially up one or two goals in the third period. Those are definitely areas I’d like to clean up, but we found a way to get two points.
After going scoreless for 40 minutes, the Rangers opened the scoring 70 seconds into the third period when Danny Zhilkin took a pass from Francesco Arcuri while going to the net and proceeded to beat Greyhounds starter Charlie Schenkel 5-hole on a backhand in tight.
Francesco Pinelli made it a 2-0 game on the power play when he scored on a rebound at 7:52 of the third. Pinelli broke in on an odd-man rush and hit Arcuri with a pass that was stopped by Schenkel with the rebound finding Pinelli on the right side heading to the net.
The goal was reviewed as Arcuri made contact with Schenkel after the initial save but was ultimately deemed a good goal.
Dean said the Greyhounds challenged the goal for goalie interference, partially because of the grey area within the rule.
“There’s so much grey, and we thought Charlie was definitely impeded on,” Dean said. “I just know that there’s such a grey area for it and it’s worth seeing what they come up with, and we thought we had a shot of winning (the challenge).”
Arcuri capped off the scoring with an empty net goal with 3:03 to go in regulation time.
Arcuri was in on all three goals for the Rangers with a goal and a pair of assists.
The Greyhounds return to action on Wednesday night in the opening game of a four-game homestand that will see the team host the Sarnia Sting at the GFL Memorial Gardens.
Sunday afternoon’s contest drops the Greyhounds record to 17-26-9-5 heading into the homestand.
For the Rangers, the win also helps them keep pace with the Flint Firebirds in the Western Conference standings. The Rangers improve to 25-26-4-0 with the win and sit five points behind Flint for seventh in the conference. Flint was also in action on Sunday, picking up a 3-2 win over Saginaw at home.
The Greyhounds played Sunday’s game minus rookie forward Connor Clattenburg, who sat out the game after getting a match penalty for slew footing on Friday night in Guelph.
Dean confirmed after Sunday’s game that the automatic two-game suspension that goes with the penalty was upheld. Clattenburg will also sit out Wednesday’s game as a result.