Hounds extend unbeaten streak over Spirit

The Soo Greyhounds inched closer to top spot in the Ontario Hockey League's west division on Friday night as they beat the Saginaw Spirit 4-1 at Memorial Gardens.

The win, combined with the Windsor Spitfires loss to the London Knights on Friday, pulled the locals to within one point of the division leaders. The good news is that they also have two games in hand on the Spitfires.

The Hounds, who were coming off a 7-4 victory over the Sudbury Wolves on Wednesday night, opened the scoring early in the first period as Chris Lawrence scored on the power play at 4:14 to give the locals an early lead.

The Spirit had an opportunity to tie the game late in the period when they were handed a five-on-three man advantage for over a minute, but they could not beat Hounds starting goaltender Kyle Gajewski, who put in a solid effort in the win.

In the second period, the Hounds built their lead as Tyler Kennedy scored at 2:48 from Jacob King and Jason Pitton. Later in the period the Hounds opened up a 3-0 advantage as Andrew Desjardins, who has been playing well of late, beat Spirit netminder Mike Brown at 14:54.

Just 3:15 later the Spirit pulled back to within two as Jesse Gimblett broke Gajewski's shutout bid and sent the game into the third period with the Hounds holding a 3-1 edge.

In the third period, the Hounds, who were solid for the most part in their own zone, held Saginaw to just three shots while peppering Brown with 20 in the period, one of which would beat him as Reg Thomas knocked home a loose puck at 9:19 on the power play to seal the fate of the Spirit as the Hounds picked up the victory.

In total Brown stopped 41 Hounds shots in the loss while Gajewski was not quite as busy in the Hounds goal stopping 19 shots for his fifth win of the season.

The win improved the Hounds record to 12-12-4 which puts them one point behind the 12-12-2-3 Windsor Spitfires and two points ahead of the 10-11-4-2 Plymouth Whalers.

Hounds coach Craig Hartsburg was pleased with the effort saying that the win "was solid."

"We worked smart and we worked hard (for the win)," the coach added.

The coach was equally pleased with the play of the veteran Desjardins, among others. Desjardins picked up goal number five in the victory over Saginaw. The sophomore forward has five points in his last four games.

Hartsburg also said that despite not being too busy, Gajewski came up big when he was needed to preserve the victory.

"(Desjardins) played a real solid game as we needed him to," Hartsburg said. Gajewski didn't face a lot of shots but he was solid when we needed him to be."

With the Kingston Frontenacs making their lone appearance in Sault Ste. Marie on Sunday, Hartsburg said of the game: "We want to finish this homestand on a positive note."

Game time on Sunday is 7 p.m.

The Hounds played the game without veteran forward Jeff Larsh, who is out of the lineup indefinitely with a broken finger, suffered in the game Wednesday against Sudbury. His status will be re-evaluated in two weeks.

*** AROUND THE O:

In London, the Knights scored four unanswered goals to beat the Windsor Spitfires 4-3 to extend their unbeaten streak to 27 games. Dylan Hunter, Rob Drummond, Kelly Thomson, and Corey Perry scored for London who outshot the Spitfires 43-14.

A late goal by Andrew Marshall helped the Barrie Colts pick up a 2-2 tie against the Guelph Storm in Guelph. Ryan Callahan had a goal and an assist for Guelph.

J.F. Houle had two goals and an assist while Wojtek Wolski had a goal and an assist as the Brampton Battalion tied the Kingston Frontenacs 4-4. Matthew Spezza, younger brother of Ottawa Senators young star and current member of the American Hockey League's Binghamton Senators, stopped 41 shots for Kingston in the tie.

Geoff Platt scored shorthanded in the final minute of overtime as the Erie Otters beat the Kitchener Rangers 3-2 in overtime. Brett MacLean and newly acquired Andrew Hotham also scored in the victory.

Aaron Alphonso led the way with two goals as the Ottawa 67's beat the Toronto St. Michael's Majors 4-1. Jamie McGinn picked up two assists as well for Ottawa.

The Plymouth Whalers scored twice on the power play and twice shorthanded as they beat Mississauga 5-1. John Mitchell had a goal and two assists for Plymouth.

Patrick Ehelechner stopped all 27 shots he faced as the Sudbury Wolves bounced back from their loss to the Greyhounds on Wednesday by beating the Sarnia Sting 4-0.

Peter Tsimikalis picked up a goal in his first game with his new team as the Oshawa Generals beat the Peterborough Petes 4-1. Carlo DiRienzo stopped 40 shots in the Generals goal for the victory.