With the Soo Greyhounds sitting on the doorstep to the Ontario Hockey League playoffs, Tyler Kennedy helped open the door a crack by leading the club past the Saginaw Spirit.
After falling to the Plymouth Whalers on Friday night, the Greyhounds desperately needed to conclude a three-game road swing with a win against the Saginaw Spirit on Saturday night.
With help from the efforts of Kennedy, the Greyhounds squeezed out a 3-2 win over the Spirit to move four points ahead of the Windsor Spitfires for the eighth and final playoff spot in the Western Conference.
The Spitfires, who hold three games in hand, dropped their second consecutive game on Saturday 3-2 to the Barrie Colts. Windsor will use two of those games in hand on Sunday with an afternoon contest in Brampton and Thursday when they host Ottawa.
The Greyhound win improves the team's record to 27-30-3-1 for 58 points and marks the club's fifth win in the last seven outings. The team has seven games remaining on the regular season schedule.
Windsor and the Soo will meet on Friday at Memorial Gardens beginning at 7:30 p.m.
Just 30 seconds after Tom Pyatt opened the scoring for the Spirit in the first period, Kennedy setup Scott Dobben's 27th goal of the year at 14:20 to tie the score at 1-1.
Both offenses were then held in check until Kennedy, who was named the game's first star, put the Hounds ahead 2-1 with his 14th of the season on the power play with 42 seconds remaining in the second period.
Jeff Larsh's 13th goal of the year gave the Hounds a 3-1 lead before Jesse Gimblett answered 10 seconds later to pull the Spirit back to within one with 5:23 remaining in regulation time. Adam Gibson recorded a pair of assists the game for the Spirit.
Kevin Druce continued his solid play in net and kicked aside 41 shots as Saginaw peppered the Greyhounds net with 43 shots. The Greyhounds fired 23 shots at goaltender Eric Pfligler.
Following the Hounds' next game on Friday against Windsor, the club will entertain the Sarnia Sting on Sunday at 2 p.m.