A structured game can do wonders for any team and when a team veers from it, the result can change pretty quickly
The Soo Greyhounds learned that first hand on Thursday night.
After taking a 3-1 lead through just over 21 minutes of action, the Greyhounds gave up six of the next seven goals in a 7-4 Ontario Hockey League loss to the North Bay Battalion in the opening game of a three-game road trip.
Greyhounds coach John Dean said following the loss that he felt his club was “very structurally sound in the first period.”
“We looked very committed to our structure in the first,” Dean said. “Sammy (Ivanov) bailed us out on some mistakes we made (in the first period). As the game went on, when we took the lead, we really veered away from the gameplan. We were below pucks. North Bay did a very good job of stretching us out by getting in behind our D and taking away our forecheck.”
“Then the rest of the game, we started to cheat,” Dean added.
Veteran forward Kalvyn Watson added that cheating offensively against a team like North Bay can be a recipe for disaster.
“We were playing a pretty good game,” Watson said. “We were cheating a little bit on the offensive side of the puck and not getting back. Those are things against a good team like that, when we’re not getting above pucks and tracking the right way and picking our guys up on the way back, they’re going to put it in the back of the net.”
“Everyone could have bought in better to the system and (we) would have been better off,” added forward Marco Mignosa.
Mignosa added that a goal in the final seconds of the second period by the Battalion to give the home team a 5-3 lead heading into the third was a difference-maker as well.
“It’s a little bit of a momentum-changer going into the intermission there,” Mignosa said. “It’s tough to bounce back from that, but it can’t be an excuse.”
Coming off a crucial win over London on Sunday afternoon at home, Watson called Thursday’s loss frustrating.
“We started the game and responded really well with how things went in the first period (against North Bay),” Watson said. “We came out and we had a lot of opportunity in the O zone and generated some stuff that didn’t go in the net and some stuff did. The cheating was something that bit us in the ass, and we have to get back to the little things that we were doing right against London”
Dean said the toughest part of Thursday’s loss after the win Sunday was how the team responded to adversity against North Bay.
Dean said he felt that adversity started to hit when North Bay made it a 3-2 game just under five minutes into the second period.
“The tough part to swallow is that when we hit adversity that we veer away from things that we know ultimately will provide us success,” Dean said. “That’s the part that’s frustrating.”
Mignosa agreed that the loss was a tough one on the heels of Sunday’s win.
“We have to play a full 60 minutes, that’s what wins you hockey games,” Mignosa said.
North Bay coach Ryan Oulahen said he felt his team appeared “a little more prepared” than they were in the last meeting between the two clubs.
“When you play the night before, and we didn’t have a lot of travel, and they haven’t played since Sunday, I think you can have a bit of advantage starting in junior hockey,” Oulahen said in an interview with BayToday.
“It looked like we came out a little more prepared than we did the last time we played them.”
North Bay through they opened the scoring just over five minutes in when Pasquale Zito took a pass in the right faceoff circle from Avery Winslow near the left point and beat Greyhounds goaltender Samuel Ivanov stick side. The goal was waved off after the net was dislodged earlier in the play and was still loose at the time of the goal.
Just under a minute later, North Bay made it a 1-0 game when Matvey Petrov took a pass in the slow from Nikita Tarasevich below the goalline and beat Ivanov glove side. The goal came after a defensive zone turnover by Greyhounds defenceman Calen Van De Ven.
The Greyhounds tied the game at one when Watson scored on a rebound after Battalion goaltender Charlie Robertson made the initial stop on the overage forward of the Greyhounds after he took a pass from Julian Fantino at 12:34.
Mignosa made it a 2-1 game when he skated down the right wing and beat Robertson with a shot from the lower part of the right faceoff circle short side at 14:23.
The Greyhounds took a 3-1 lead when Mark Duarte took a pass as he skated into the right faceoff circle from Justin Cloutier and beat Robertson stick side at 1:07 of the second period.
With the Battalion on the power play, Ty Nelson pulled the home team to within one as he beat Ivanov with a one-timer from the top of the left circle short side at 4:48.
Petrov tied the game at three at 7:32 when he beat Ivanov high stick side from the slot after taking a pass from Zito.
Nelson picked up his second goal of the night at 11:02 when he beat Ivanov from the point on a one-timer high glove side after a pass from Brayden Turley.
With 1.5 seconds to go in the period, Winslow made it a two-goal game heading into the third. Winslow took a pass from Zito as the Battalion entered the Greyhounds zone, skated into the left circle and beat Ivanov high glove side.
Kyle McDonald made it a 6-3 game in the third period when he slipped through a pair of Greyhound players in the high slot and beat Ivanov with a shot stick side just 2:48 into the final period.
The Greyhounds cut the North Bay lead back down to two goals when Jordan D’Intino banked the puck in off Robertson from just below the goalline to the right of the North Bay net at 10:22. but McDonald sealed the win with an empty net goal for the Battalion with 3:18 to go in regulation time.
Mignosa had a goal and an assist for the Greyhounds while Brenden Sirizzotti assisted on two goals.
Ivanov stopped 28 shots for the visitors.
Petrov and Nelson paced the Battalion offensively with two goals and an assist each in the victory.
Zito also had a three-point night for North Bay with three assists.
In addition to the two-goal night for McDonald, Tarasevich also had a pair of points with two assists in the win.
Robertson made 31 saves for his seventh win of the season.
The Greyhounds three-game road trip resumes on Saturday night in Barrie against the Colts before wrapping up on Sunday afternoon in Sudbury against the Wolves.
With the loss, the Greyhounds fall to 12-15-7-4. The team sits two points behind the idle Guelph Storm for seventh in the OHL’s Western Conference though the Greyhounds have a game in hand. The Greyhounds are three points ahead of the Kitchener Rangers in the standings.
North Bay improves to 28-10-0-1 and remain atop the Central Division and second in the Eastern Conference standings.
On the injury front for the Greyhounds, general manager Kyle Raftis said earlier this week that forward Owen Allard remains on track for a return to the lineup in late-February or early-March.
Raftis also said defenceman Connor Toms “is a few weeks away still.”
With regards to goaltender Charlie Schenkel, Raftis said the netminder will not play this weekend but wouldn’t rule out a potential return at some point during the Greyhounds upcoming five-game homestand.
Defenceman Andrew Gibson left the game in the second period of Thursday’s loss due to injury.
Dean said following the game that he didn’t know Gibson’s status going forward at that point.