Hounds struggle in loss to Wolves

The Soo Greyhounds will gladly accept the return of some power to their struggling offense.

Missing the likes of Jeff Carter, Blair Jarrett, Ryan McInerney, Josh Day, Jordan Smith and Martin Tuma from their lineup, the Hounds have had troubles scoring goals in their absence.

Sunday night proved to be no different as the Sudbury Wolves skated to a 3-0 win over the Greyhounds in front of 2,510 fans at Memorial Gardens.

Sudbury, who has won nine of their last 11 games, captured the opener of the home-and-home series with the Hounds on New Year's Eve in the Nickel City by rallying from a 2-0 deficit to claim a 3-2 win.

In four games since the holiday break, the Hounds have been shutout twice on home ice and have scored three goals in total.

"We need guys to come out and play whether Jeff Carter is here or not," said Greyhounds head coach Craig Hartsburg. "We have guys that need to play better. The production will come if they put the work back into it. We have some guys that are trying to put the skill ahead of the work and what's happening is they are getting frustrated.

"Scoring comes in this league not by just fancy plays but through the forecheck and turning pucks over and getting pucks to the net. We are more concerned about those areas because we are not doing enough of that rather than just being concerned about the scoring."

The Hounds will receive a boost this week with Carter, Tuma and goaltender Jakub Cech returning from the World Junior Hockey Championships while Day and McInerney will also return from the World Under-17 Hockey Challenge.

Jarrett, who is currently nursing a knee injury, is also a possible returnee next weekend while Smith's status remains unknown while recovering from an emergency appendectomy.

On Sunday, the Wolves opened the scoring 6:29 into the game when Nick Foligno scored his sixth of the year to complete an odd-man rush.

Zack Stortini added to the Wolves lead 1:59 into the second period with a power play goal following a weak slashing call on Hounds overage forward Reg Thomas. Mike Mills completed the scoring 13:57 into the third period by finishing a two-on-one break past goaltender Kyle Gajewski.

Patrick Ehelechner stopped 27 shots to record the shutout for the Wolves.

"Sudbury's a physical team and I think they took advantage of us missing four real big guys and that's not uncommon. When we realized it was going to be a hard game in the second period, we got ourselves involved and we played better," said Hartsburg.

Hartsburg was also concerned with his team's play since the Christmas break and feels that the players haven't responded to the adversity and opportunity of playing with a depleted lineup.

"We are concerned that the guys we count on, whether Carter is here or not, haven't taken the challenge and the opportunity especially after Christmas. Before Christmas, we did a pretty good job of battling through it but we didn't come back with the same hunger and we have to fix that."

The Greyhounds return to action on Friday at Memorial Gardens against the Windsor Spitfires at 7:30 p.m.

*** CARTER HELPS CANADA TO GOLD MEDAL GAME:

Greyhounds captain Jeff Carter followed up his natural hat trick performance with a goal on Sunday to help Team Canada to a 3-1 semi-final win over the Czech Republic at the World Junior Hockey Championships.

Carter, who now has six goals in the tournament, scored the natural hat trick in Canada's win over Finland in their final game of the round robin on Thursday.

Canada will now face Russia, who beat the U.S. 6-2 in the other semi-final, in the gold medal game on Tuesday night.