Hounds hit the win column

It took until their fourth game, but the hard work is starting to pay off for the Soo Greyhounds. The Hounds opened up a short two game home stand on Friday night with a hard-fought 3-2 victory over the visiting Saginaw Spirit at Memorial Gardens. The Hounds used a two-goal performance from overage winger Jeff Doyle and a steady effort from net minder Kevin Druce to pick up the win. Saginaw opened the scoring at 8:59 of the opening period when Patrick McNeill, selected with the top pick in the 2003 OHL Priority Selection, scored his first goal of the season beating Druce under the arm on the stick side. The goal came moments after Saginaw goaltender Mike Brown stopped Tyler Kennedy of the Hounds on a breakaway. The Greyhounds wasted no time in battling back as Kennedy made up for the earlier misfortune by beating Brown through the legs after splitting the Spirit defence and moving in alone. Doyle scored his first goal of the evening at 16:37 with a power play marker to give the Hounds a 2-1 lead heading into the first intermission Early in the second period, Doyle gave the Hounds a two-goal cushion to work with when he beat Brown at 2:39. The Spirit fought back in the third and pulled to within one goal when Geoff Platt, who had a strong game in being named the game's second star, cut in from the corner and beat Druce to cut the Hounds lead to 3-2. But the goal wasn't enough as the Hounds held on for the win. Hounds coach Marty Abrams was pleased following the game that the Hounds were able to get their first win out of the way and he stressed that the result would help in keeping the players working hard. Although he hasn't been pleased with the team coming out slow in the first period of games, he was happy that the team turned that around and played a strong opening period. "The biggest thing is to show hard work," Abrams said following the game. "If you don't see results though, you start to lose that hard work. The guys showed hard work. The first period started off hard and it built from there." Abrams was also pleased with the play of newly acquired overage winger Colt King, who was picked up on Wednesday from the Oshawa Generals. King played a regular shift and, despite being off the ice for two weeks since attending the Minnesota Wild training camp, played well. Druce, who was named the game's first star, also played well stopping 36 Saginaw shots to get the win. "He came up big," Abrams said. "He's made our penalty kill better and is one of the reasons why our penalty kill is doing well." Second year forward Tyler Kennedy also played a strong game and Abrams stated after the game that the 17-year-old forward is playing with the poise of a 19-year-old. "People forget he's 17," Abrams said of the Hounds 2002 first round pick. "We're asking him to do things that 18- and 19-year-olds don't do and he's responded." The Hounds don't have a lot of time to savour the win as they will be back to work when the Kitchener Rangers pay their first visit to Memorial Gardens for a Sunday afternoon contest with the Hounds at 2 p.m. In other Ontario Hockey League action on Friday night, the Brampton Battalion got a late goal from newly acquired Howie Martin to beat the Sarnia Sting 2-1 and the London Knights used a four-point performance from Scott Sheppard to beat the Sudbury Wolves 9-2 in a penalty-filled affair that featured 26 power plays. Plymouth beat Owen Sound 2-1 on a first period goal from David Liffiton. Toronto St. Michael's got a 48 save performance from Justin Peters to knock off the Kitchener Rangers 2-1 and Bryan Bickell scored a hat trick as Ottawa beat Mississauga 5-2. Bobby Hughes scored a natural hat trick as Kingston beat Belleville 5-1 and Ryan Kitchen scored the winner as Oshawa beat Windsor 3-2. Brad Coccimiglio