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The Great North Under-18 Hockey League’s regular season has some to an end and the Soo Jr. Greyhounds will enter playoff action on quite a roll.
Winners of four of their last five games to end regular season play, the Jr. Greyhounds finished the regular season with a record of 20-4-0-0 (wins-loss-overtime losses-shootout losses), tops in the U18 loop.
On the final weekend of the regular season, the U18 Greyhounds picked up a split on the road in North Bay, dropping a 2-1 decision on Friday to the North Bay U16 Trappers before beating North Bay’s U18 team on Saturday 1-0.
Evan Roach had the lone goal for the Jr. Greyhounds on Friday while Jacob Smith scored Saturday’s game-winning goal for the short-staffed Sault club in the game.
Jr. Greyhounds forward Lincoln Moore finished the season as the Great North League’s top scorer with 37 points – 18 goals, 19 assists – in 24 games this season.
Moore’s 18 goals were tied for second in the league.
A trio of Jr. Greyhounds players were among the league leaders in assists.
Moore’s 19 helpers were second while Austin Fellinger was third with 18, and Gabe Zimbaro was tied for third with 16.
Jr. Greyhounds goaltender Charlie Burns finished the season with a 1.51 goals against average, tops among goaltenders.
The Jr. Greyhounds return to action in the league’s playoff tournament on Wednesday evening against the Sudbury Nickel Capitals U16 team.
The five-day tournament will feature all eight of the Great North League’s teams split into two four-team pools with each team playing three round robin games.
The top two teams in each pool will advance into the crossover playoff round on Saturday.
The winners of those games will meet in Sunday’s league championship.
Sault Major’s Soo Jr. Greyhounds AA program capped off a successful season overall with four teams capturing Nickel District Hockey League titles recently.
The championship clubs include:
- The Jr. Greyhounds U16 team, competing in the U18 division, went 4-0 in round robin play before beating the Nickel City Sons U18 team 4-2 in the title game
- The Jr. Greyhounds U14 team, which went 3-0 in round robin play before beating the Timmins North Stars U14 team 3-0 in the title game
- The Jr. Greyhounds U12 team, which went 1-2 in round robin play before beating the Nickel City Sons U12 team 4-2 in the final. The win came after the team dropped an 8-4 decision to the Sons in the final round robing game
- The Jr. Greyhounds U11 team, which went 4-0 in round robin play before capping off the weekend with an 8-0 win over the Sudbury Timberwolves in the final.
Elsewhere, the Soo Jr. Greyhounds U10 and U13 teams, advanced to their respective title games and finished second while the Jr. Greyhounds U15 team went 1-1-1 in their tournament.
In the Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League, the Soo Thunderbirds winning streak moved to 13 games over the weekend as the team picked up a pair of victories, including a 4-2 win over the Hearst Lumberjacks on Friday night.
The win over Hearst ended the Lumberjacks 12-game winning streak in the process.
A goal by Andrew Gibson at 10:32 of the third period was the game winner for the Thunderbirds in the game. Gibson had two goals and an assist in the win.
On Saturday night, Dharan Cap scored at 4:03 of overtime as the Thunderbirds beat the Timmins Rock 4-3. Cooper Foster had two goals and an assist for the Thunderbirds.
With the weekend victories, the Thunderbirds record improves to 33-5-2-3.