For a team that entered the Ontario Hockey League season facing a rebuild after trading assets a season ago for a playoff run and got off to a slow start, Soo Greyhounds coach John Dean is seeing some positives.
The team has remained competitive this season and sits two games above the .500 mark through 14 games.
“We’re really starting to move in the right direction,” Dean said. “We’re still not where we need to be, but we did a lot of good things tonight.”
That came after the Greyhounds dropped a 4-3 decision on the road against the London Knights Friday in the second game of a three-game road trip.
Dean said he was particularly pleased with the Greyhounds play in the offensive zone in the game.
“I liked our fight to get to the blue paint,” Dean said of the Greyhounds offensively.
Dean called it “one of the more structured games we’ve played all season long.”
“We were on them for a lot of the game,” added forward Christopher Brown. “Offensively and defensively, we were very structured.”
Dean did also say that he felt the Greyhounds need to be “way crisper in transition.”
“Our plays are still not crisp enough and we’re shooting ourselves in the foot with turnovers (and) light plays,” Dean said.
Dean added that many of the Greyhounds’ turnovers in the game “were not under a lot of duress.”
“We had opportunity to snap pucks in transition and really dictate the pace of play,” Dean said. “We weren’t hard on pucks that way. That was definitely an issue for us and they capitalized on transition.
Brown agreed that turovers in the game were costly for the Greyhounds.
“Big time,” Brown said.
“We have to play with our heads up and being predictable to each other helps that as well,” he added. “Sometimes we’re leaving guys on islands, especially our defencemen and that doesn’t help.”
Dean also expressed concern with the refereeing in the game saying, “it looked like we were playing two teams tonight.”
Dean noted that Friday’s game was the fourth consecutive game in which the Knights had a 5-on-3 man advantage.
“It was something we prepped for because we assumed we would get a 5-on-3 against,” Dean said.
London opened the scoring in the second half of the first period as Landon Sim beat Greyhounds starter Landon Miller high glove side off a short pass from Sam O’Reilly at the side of the goal at 13:20. O’Reilly made the pass quickly after taking a pass from William Nicholl on the left wing.
The Knights made it a 2-0 game just under five minutes into the second period as Blake Arrowsmith grabbed a loose puck near the Sault blueline off a forced turnover by Jacob Julien. Arrowsmith then proceeded to beat Miller from the high slot at 4:52 to extend the Knights lead.
The Greyhounds got on the board just under two minutes later as Marco Mignosa got the puck and went to the net after Noel Nordh forced a London turnover in the neutral zone. After cutting to the net, Mignosa was stopped initially before scoring on the rebound in tight to make it a one-goal game.
London took a 3-1 lead just 1:31 later as Ryder Boulton scored on a rebound from the slot after getting stopped initially in tight.
The Greyhounds again made it a one-goal game in the third period thanks to a goal by Justin Cloutier. The veteran forward beat a London player out into the slot before beating London goaltender Austin Elliott from the slot at 6:26.
London retook the two-goal lead just under two minutes later as Jacob Julien took a pass just inside the left circle from Easton Cowan down low and beat Miller with a one-timer on the power play.
Brown gave the Greyhounds a chance to get the game on even terms with just over five minutes to go in regulation time as he beat Elliott from the right faceoff circle with a shot stick side after a Knights turnover defensively.
Miller made 33 saves for the Greyhounds in the game.
“Another great game by Landon,” Dean said. “He battles super hard for us (and) gives us an opportunity to be in the game at the end.”
Julien finished the night with a goal and an assist for London while Elliott stopped 30 shots.
The loss snaps the Greyhounds five-game winning streak as the team now looks ahead to the end of a three-game road trip on Saturday night in Flint against the Firebirds.
The Greyhounds will take a record of 8-6-0-0 into Saturday’s game.
Winners of five in a row, the Knights improve to 9-4-0-0 after the win on Friday.