Special teams have a way of changing games in a heartbeat and the Soo Greyhounds learned that the hard way on Friday night.
The Guelph Storm scored four times on the man advantage en route to a 7-3 Ontario Hockey League win on Friday over the Greyhounds at the Sleeman Centre in Guelph.
Guelph scored on three of their first four power play opportunities, including taking advantage of a 5-on-3 midway through the opening period after Greyhounds forwards Connor Clattenburg and Justin Cloutier took penalties just over a minute apart.
The Clattenburg penalty was a match penalty for slew-footing, which carries an automatic two-game suspension though it will also get reviewed by the league office.
The major came at a time when the Greyhounds had gotten off to a good start in the contest, outshooting the Storm and seemingly having carried over a strong effort from 24 hours earlier in a win over Niagara.
“Obviously it’s very significant,” Greyhounds coach John Dean said of the major penalty.
“Our guys came out strong,” Dean added. “(There was) a little bit of back-and-forth, but we were competing hard and had the edge in the shot department, started to feel good about ourselves on the bench for sure. To take the five minutes and then unfortunately the five-on-three, it’s difficult.”
Veteran forward Brenden Sirizzotti called the early power play goals “a tough pill to swallow going down early like that.”
The Storm took full advantage of the odd-man situations and capitalized throughout the night, scoring on four of their six power play opportunities.
“We have to stay out of the box,” overage forward Mark Duarte said. “That was a key thing tonight. We outplayed them five-on-five, but they capitalized on their opportunities when they were on the power play.”
Dean said that, despite the result, he “liked the jump in our group.”
“In the first period, we competed very hard,” Dean said.
“In the second period, there was some jump in our step. It’s not a perfect game by any means, some mistakes proved to cost us, but there was fight in our group,” Dean added.
Dean called a goal by Guelph’s Charlie Paquette midway through the second period, one that came 18 seconds after the Greyhounds had cut the Storm lead at the time to 3-1, a “backbreaker.”
“We make two turnovers in one shift, and they go in and make it 4-1 and from there you could see a little deflation in our bench,” Dean said.
Sirizzotti called the goal “a momentum-killer.”
Guelph opened the scoring as Max Namestnikov scored on a rebound from the right faceoff circle after Greyhounds starter Charlie Schenkel stopped a shot by Braeden Bowman from the top of the left circle at 11:29 with the Storm on a two-man advantage.
Namestnikov made it a 2-0 game, again with a power play goal, when he grabbed a loose puck in the right circle after it came loose from a scramble in the slot and beat Schenkel at 16:23.
Guelph took a 3-0 lead when Bowman beat Schenkel with a one-timer high short side from the left circle on a pass from Michael Buchinger at 7:28 of the second period, also on the power play.
The Greyhounds got on the board with a power play goal of their own when Kalvyn Watson scored on a rebound in close after Storm goaltender Patrick Leaver stopped a shot from the left point by Kirill Kudryavtsev initially at 11:12.
Just 18 seconds later, Charlie Paquette restored the three-goal lead for the Storm when he converted a back-door pass from ____.
Namestnikov scored his third goal of the night at 12:59 when he skated into the right circle from the high slot and beat Schenkel glove side, ending the night for the Sault netminder.
Mark Duarte scored for the Greyhounds at 15:24 when he scored on a rebound in close on the power play. Duarte was stopped initially after Leaver also stopped a shot from the right circle by Brenden Sirizzotti.
The Storm picked up another power play goal when Namestnikov potted a rebound in tight after Samuel Ivanov made the initial stop on the play on a shot from the point by Buchinger at 19:21.
The Greyhounds thought they made it a 6-3 game 1:14 into the third when Duarte looked to hit Marco Mignosa in close with a pass, but it instead deflected in off Leaver. The goal was eventually waved off due to an offside.
Guelph would make it a 7-2 game when Jake Karabela went to the net and redirected a pass from Matthew Poitras on a 2-on-1 at 13:41.
Sirizzotti capped off the scoring in the final minute, scoring on a rebound after Leaver stopped a shot from the high slot by Owen Allard.
Sirizzotti finished the night with a goal and an assist for the Greyhounds while Kudryavtsev assisted on a pair of goals.
Schenkel stopped 12 of 17 Guelph shots before being pulled. Ivano made 14 saves in just over 27 minutes of work.
Leaver made 32 saves for the Storm.
In addition to the four-goal night for Namestnikov, Bowman and Buchinger added four points each for the Storm in the win. Bowman had a goal and three assists while Buchinger assisted on four goals.
“It was one of those nights where everything was going my way,” Namestnikov said in an interview with GuelphToday.
“If you keep doing the little things, you eventually get rewarded. The hockey gods are always watching and today I just got rewarded for it.”
Cooper Walker chipped in with a pair of assists for Guelph.
The loss, combined with an overtime loss by the Kitchener Rangers, leaves the Greyhounds four points behind Kitchener for the final playoff spot in the OHL’s Western Conference. The Rangers dropped a 3-2 decision in Owen Sound on Friday night.
Kitchener has a pair of games in hand on the Greyhounds.
The two clubs are slated to meet in Kitchener on Sunday afternoon, which is the next game for both teams.
The Greyhounds record falls to 17-25-9-5 following Friday’s result.
Guelph improves to 27-24-4-1 with the win and keep pace with the Attack as the two clubs remain tied in the Western Conference standings. Owen Sound has two games in hand on the Storm.