From the drop of the puck, they certainly didn’t do themselves any favours.
Facing a team that’s made the transition game an important part of what’s been a successful start to the season, the Soo Greyhounds seemingly shot themselves in the foot quite regularly.
Struggling to manage the puck against a strong Niagara IceDogs team, the Greyhounds dropped an 8-4 decision to the St. Catharines-based club Friday night at the GFL Memorial Gardens in Ontario Hockey League play.
“That’s an unacceptable game for us,” Greyhounds coach John Dean said. “For us to mismanage pucks against a transition team, we were asking for that score tonight.”
The analysis from the Greyhounds coach was relatively simple following the setback.
“Execution was very much a struggle for us tonight,” Dean said. “A lot of goals against, we were just looking at them, pucks are fully on our stick, and we give the puck right back to them, either whiffing on pucks or failure to connect on passes.”
Dean added that, when the Greyhounds managed to get some semblance of flow in their game “we tried to get perfect opportunities instead of settling for just good chances to put pucks to paint.”
“It looks like we were in individual mode and when you’re in individual mode, it’s very tough to read,” Dean added. “The other four guys have difficulty reading what you’re going to do.”
Dean agreed that turnovers were an issue in the loss as well, saying that the turnovers “where guys where we’re trying to turn decent chances into incredible chances by stickhandling through the whole team, those ones frustrate me the most.”
“We had a lot of chances to get the puck on a goalie who hasn’t played in a long time,” Dean added. “We chose to look for better options, which is confusing to me.”
With a day off between games, Dean said the approach to Saturday’s time before an afternoon contest against Sarnia on Sunday is one that might see a bit of a different approach with the team.
“I don’t love showing guys lack of execution, especially the day before a game, but it might be so blatant from today about the lack of execution and the unwillingness to put pucks to the net looking for something better (that it needs to be shown),” Dean said. “Those two things are well within our control, being focused with the puck and not trying to do too much yourself. “
IceDogs coach Ben Boudreau said the first two periods of the game “may be the best forty minutes the IceDogs have played since I came on board in the last year-and-a-half.”
“The guys were just buzzing,” Boudreau added. “We knew we had to be ready.”
Boudreau added that the buy-in from his players was crucial in the first two periods to build a lead.
“There wasn’t a single passenger,” Boudreau said. “We found a way to buy in on the defensive side. (On Thursday against North Bay), we didn’t find a way to get bodies or traffic in front of any of those shots. It was by committee (tonight) that we found a way to defend with purpose.”
Niagara got on the board first as Andrei Loshko skated toward the slot before beating Landon Miller with a shot from the right circle through traffic stick side on the power play 3:07 into the game.
The IceDogs made it a 2-0 game before the period was done after a defensive zone turnover by the Greyhounds. A shot by Blair Scott after the turnover after it was deflected by Kevin He past Miller at 9:41.
Niagara took a 3-0 lead at 6:08 of the second period as Scott took a pass in the left faceoff circle from Ryan Roobroeck and beat Miller high stick side off the crossbar.
The Greyhounds got on the board as Carson Andrew went to the net on a 2-on-1 and took a pass from Brodie McConnell-Barker before beating Charlie Robertson with a deke to the stick side at 12:59.
The IceDogs made it a three-goal game again at 14:06 as Ethan Czata scored on a rebound after Miller stopped Blake Arrowsmith initially. The goal ended the night for Miller, who was replaced by Charlie Schenkel following the goal.
Niagara proceeded to make it a 5-1 game on the next shift as Alex Assadourian beat Schenkel on a broken play in the slot at 15:14.
The Greyhounds pulled to within four as Jordan Charron beat Robertson on a breakaway after taking a pass from Chase Reid at 2:12 into the third period.
On a two-man advantage, Czata beat Schenkel from in tight on a tap-in after a pass from Braidy Wassilyn at 3:41 to make it 6-2.
Noel Nordh made it a 6-3 game on a penalty shot at 4:38 before Brady Martin cut the lead to two goals with 4:45 to go in the third period.
An empty net goal from Loshko at 18:43 made it a 7-4 game before Mike Levin capped off the scoring with 42 seconds to go as he scored on a rebound after his initial shot on a breakaway was stopped by Schenkel.
Miller stopped 18 of 22 shots for the Greyhounds before being pulled in the loss. Schenkel made nine saves on 12 shots the rest of the way in just over 24 minutes of work.
Kevin He finished the night with a goal and three assists for the IceDogs while Scott had a goal and a pair of assists. In addition to the two-goal nights from Czata and Loshko, Levin had a goal and an assist for Niagara and Arrowsmith assisted on a pair of goals.
Robertson made 27 saves for Niagara.
With the win, the IceDogs improve to 19-9-1-1 on the season.
The Greyhounds will take a record of 14-16-0-0 into Sunday’s game against Sarnia, which if the final home game for the team prior to the Christmas break. The team is set to play a pair of road games next week before the OHL’s break for the holiday.
On the injury front, Dean said forward Owen Allard is day-to-day while defenceman Spencer Evans, who has missed an extended period is getting closer to returning but is 10 days away “if all things go perfectly.”
Christopher Brown remains week-to-week while Sam Bowness won’t play this weekend, but Dean added that the 19-year-old is close to getting back in the lineup as well.
The Greyhounds will also be without defenceman Andrew Gibson going forward after the blueliner was named to the Canadian roster for the upcoming World Junior tournament.