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OHL Soo Greyhounds

Special Teams Perfect in Victory over Sting

February 11, 2015 - Ontario Hockey League (OHL)
Soo Greyhounds News Release


SAULT STE. MARIE, ON- Going perfect on their power play and penalty kill were the biggest positive for the Soo Greyhounds as they played their first home game this month on Wednesday.

Scoring twice on the man advantage, while killing off all four of the Sarnia Sting's man advantages helped lead the Hounds to a 5-2 victory, their 39th of the season.

"We've spent a lot of time on that. Yesterday we practiced for 90 minutes and did nothing but special teams. We didn't even do a warm-up drill, we did nothing but special teams. And we talked today about wanting to see progress and we did" began Hounds Head Coach Sheldon Keefe.

"That definitely is a huge positive and we just have to stick with that" he added.

The frustrating part for the Hounds Head Coach, was how he felt the team turned it on, and off throughout their third meeting with the Sting.

It would be the short-staffed visitors (playing with one call-up defenceman, and shot two forwards) that opened the scoring on an innocent play that ended up awkwardly in the Hounds net originating from long range.

Daniel Nikandrov's shot from centre ice that appeared to hit a Greyhound on it's way through, and then an awkward bounce off the ice caught BRANDON HALVERSON as the Sting opened the lead 8:24 into the first period.

The Greyhounds quickly pulled even 1:25 later, when JUSTIN BAILEY set-up SERGEY TOLCHINSKY in front where he would beat Taylor Dupuis for his 21st goal of the season to tie things at 1-1.

Then with five minutes to play in the period, ANTHONY DeANGELO skated around the net before feeding MICHAEL BUNTING for his 24th goal of the season and a 2-1 Greyhound lead through twenty minutes. GABE GUERTLER picked up the second assist on the play.

While killing off the Sting's second power play of the night in the second period, DARNELL NURSE showed great hustle back checking to break-up a Sting 3-on-1 and helping maintain the one goal lead.

The Hounds increased their lead at 6:17 mark when SERGEY TOLCHINSKY finished off a tick-tac-toe play at the side of the goal making it 3-1. BLAKE SPEERS and NICK RITCHIE factored in on the play.

The lead increased to 4-1 at 14:47 as JARED MCCANN rifled a shot from the left face-off circle and beat Dupuis for his 24th goal of the season, from NICK RITCHIE and TYLER HORE.

With the slimmest of shot advantages in the period (14-13) the Hounds led 4-1 through two periods.

In the third period the two teams would trade off goals as JUSTIN BAILEY made it 5-1 Greyhounds at 3:11 on the power play and then Noah Bushnell scored for Sarnia capping off the three goal victory for the Hounds.

"I'm not angry. As I said, because I've seen it (referencing the effort he has team his team show), now we have it. We've done it and shown that the fact we play the game the way we did in Niagara and then the very next night (at Erie) go in and play a very efficient game shows me it's a bit of a lightswitch for these guys" he explained.

"That's good to know, at the same time it's frustrating to watch. It makes you not want to build leads, makes you not want to score because you want to see your guys work through it" said Keefe.

The victory improved the Hounds to 39-11-0-2 on the season, good for 80 points.

"I thought we had portions of the game were outstanding. There is just a lot of things we can do a lot better" concluded Keefe.

ATTENDANCE - 4,326

RED STAR THREE STARS OF THE GAME

1- SSM, Sergey Tolchinsky

2- SSM, Jared McCann

3- SSM, Darnell Nurse

To view the online scoresheet courtesy of the OHL CLICK HERE.

UP NEXT;

The Greyhounds head out on the road later this week for a trio of games against West Division opponents beginning on Friday, February 13 @ Saginaw (7:11 p.m.)

This will be the 8th and final meeting of the regular season between the I-75 rivals and the action begins on Rock 101 starting at 6:40 p.m. (101.3 FM, www.rock101.net)

From there the Hounds head into Plymouth on Saturday (Feb. 12 @ 7:05 p.m.) before concluding the weekend on Monday afternoon - Family Day February 16 @ Sarnia (2:00 p.m.)

NEXT HOME GAME;

Then it will be back at home for the Hounds for five straight games beginning one week from tonight - Wednesday, February 18th versus the Sudbury Wolves (7:07 p.m.)

Tickets for all home games are available at the Essar Centre Box Office (M-F 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Saturday 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.) or online at www.essarcentre.ca or by phone at 1.866.775.9422.

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