The Soo Greyhounds couldn't contain the potent Guelph Storm attack and fell back into a draw for playoff position.
With the pressure of knowing that the Windsor Spitfires had defeated the Ottawa 67's in overtime earlier in the day, the Greyhounds surrendered a pair of quick goals and dropped a 4-2 decision to the Storm in Ontario Hockey League action in front of 2,931 fans at Memorial Gardens on Sunday night.
The loss drops the Greyhounds record to 25-29-3-1 for 54 points and a tie with the 23-25-2-6 Spitfires for the eighth and final playoff spot the Western Conference. Windsor holds two games in hand.
"The first four or five minutes of the game is what made the difference," said Greyhounds head coach Marty Abrams. "We had some chances to score and didn't and then they came back down and scored. That has been a problem that has plagued us all season, we haven't been able to bury our chances."
Shane Hart opened the scoring for the Storm just 31 seconds into the game. At 3:55, Martin St. Pierre scored his 38th of the year with a bullet shot through Greyhounds goaltender Kevin Druce.
The Greyhounds fought back with a goal with 12 seconds remaining in the opening period as Jeff Carter notched his 31st of the year.
Matt Ryan's 32nd goal of the year on the power play put Guelph ahead 3-1 after two periods. Carter, the game's first star, scored his second of the night early in the third period to pull his team back into the game once again.
Former Greyhound Brett Trudell spoiled any hopes of a Greyhound comeback with a goal 1:20 later.
"We are still having a problem of taking undisciplined penalties at poor times and they capitalized on the power play. They were playing their third game in three days and a guy like Marty St. Pierre, who is five-foot-nine, just dominates the game. Even when we lost 5-2 in Guelph before Christmas, he went toe-to-toe with them but lost on power plays and rebounds," said Abrams.
Daniel Paille added a pair of assists for the Storm while former Greyhound and Echo Bay product Niko Tuomi recorded an assist.
Storm goaltender Danny Taylor stopped 24 of 26 Greyhound shots and made several quality saves throughout. Druce also came up with some big stops and turned aside 33 of 37 Guelph shots.
The game saw its share of chippy play and fans were entertained by a pair of dandy fights between Greyhound rookie Andrew Desjardins and Mark Versteeg-Lytwyn and toe-to-toe battle with Jordan Smith and Storm enforcer Cam Janssen.
Greyhounds head coach Marty Abrams was ejected from the game by referee Sean Reid at the end of the first period following a penalty call on Reg Thomas at the buzzer. Abrams protested the call but later felt that the referee might have made the right decision.
"I don't know exactly why (I was ejected) but the ref made the right call and now we'll move on," said Abrams. "I think I had a bad view on the Thomas call and he made the right call. Sometimes when you're on the wrong side of the ice and don't get a good view but he had good position to make the call."
The Greyhounds were forced to play without forward Tyler Kennedy who is bothered by a nagging shoulder problem and was a game time scratch while defenseman Martin Tuma was a healthy scratch.
"We're running out of time and running out of games. We needed a win tonight but we are going to have to bounce back in Sudbury. Time isn't on our side and Windsor had a big win over Ottawa. They did their part and we didn't do ours and now we have to regroup for Tuesday," said Abrams.
The Greyhounds will now head out on a three-game road swing beginning Tuesday night in Sudbury. The team then moves on to Plymouth on Friday and Saginaw on Saturday.
The next home action for the Greyhounds is Friday, February 27 against Windsor.