Coming out of the gate well was something they needed to do better and it appeared very early on that it was going to happen.
Then they were hit with a major penalty that appeared to change things.
Looking to build off the opening game of their road trip, the Soo Greyhounds came out strong in game two, but a combination of a major penalty and less-than-stellar decision-making changed that in a hurry.
It ultimately led to a 3-0 loss at the hands of the Kitchener Rangers Friday night at the Kitchener Memorial Auditorium.
In the opening shifts of the game, it appeared as though the Greyhounds had overcome the slow start that plagued the team in the opening period of Wednesday’s win over the Saginaw Spirit.
That changed just over seven minutes into the game when overage defenceman Caeden Carlisle was given a major penalty for boarding following a hit on Rangers defenceman Alexander Bilecki along the end boards.
Greyhounds assistant coach Brendan Taylor, who ran the bench with fellow assistant Daniel Nikandrov with head coach John Dean serving the second game of a two-game suspension, said the major penalty was a tough one to take for multiple reasons.
“It was unnecessary and put us in a tough spot, both in terms of putting us down to five D for 50-plus minutes and also because he’s our captain and leader and an excellent player,” Taylor said. “(The game) turned from there. Despite doing a good job of killing off a five-minute penalty, it zapped us of energy and it’s something that can’t happen from someone we need on our team and does so much for us on the ice.”
Taylor said much of the game from that point on, decision-making was a concern as well.
“The whole game can be summed up by us shooting ourselves in the foot with our decision-making,” Taylor said, adding that he felt the Greyhounds were solid out of the gate prior to the major penalty.
“Giving that team, who has an elite power play, (time), they get to feel good about themselves and they generate momentum,” Taylor added. “We’re down to five D and on the penalty kill, we’ve got to gas out some of our guys. Our decision-making at bluelines and some of them in transition were poor.”
Despite 27 shots in the game, including 22 over the final 40 minutes, Taylor agreed that the Greyhounds didn’t make life easy on Rangers goaltender Jackson Parsons.
“I don’t think we generated enough,” Taylor said. “I don’t think we made it hard enough on Parsons, who is an excellent goalie. I don’t think we got to the net enough and when we did have chances, it almost looked rushed with them. It was shots right in the logo or fanning on them or not being hard around the net. There was opportunity to have more scoring chances or better scoring chances with some of our execution.”
At the other end of the ice, the Greyhounds got a quality effort from goaltender Landon Miller despite the result.
The second year netminder stopped 45 Rangers shots in the loss.
“It was as competitive or more competitive than I’ve ever seen him,” Taylor said. “Not to say he normally isn’t (competitive), but there was a lot of goalmouth scrambles where he didn’t give up on a single puck. He was determined to make sure no pucks got in.”
“Landon was outstanding and so competitive,” Taylor added.
While hitting the net was a concern at times, Rangers coach Jussi Ahokas felt his team did a lot of things right in the game.
“We had plenty of chances and we played a solid game,” Ahokas said in an interview following the game with RogersTV. “We scored three, but we could have scored way more. We were missing the net quite a bit.”
The Rangers coach added that he was pleased overall with his lineup in the victory.
“We had so many chances, any line could have scored,” Ahokas said. “I was happy with all four lines.”
Kitchener got on the board first as Cameron Mercer scored from in tight on a scramble. Mercer was the last player to touch the puck before it slid past Greyhounds goaltender Landon Miller at 7:39.
The Rangers took a 2-0 lead with just under six minutes to go in the second period as Chris Grisolia beat Miller with a one-timer from the right wing that deflected off something on the way to the net. Defenceman Carson Campbell hit Grisolia with a long pass on the play.
Grisolia capped off the scoring with an empty net goal that came with just over three minutes left in the third period.
Rangers goaltender Jackson Parsons stopped 27 shots for the shutout in the victory.
The Greyhounds will wrap up their three-game road trip on Saturday night in Owen Sound against the Attack.
With the loss, the Greyhounds fall to 13-14-0-0 on the season while the Rangers improve to 20-5-2-1.
Following the major penalty in the game, Carlisle’s status for Saturday’s game remains up in the air pending a review of the play by the OHL office.