1 week Ago By Brad Coccimiglio
Mental and physical fatigue can take a toll on a team and for the Soo Greyhounds, it may have caught up with them. “We look like a very tired group,” Greyhounds coach John Dean said Friday night. The comment came after the Greyhounds surrendered three unanswered goals in a 3-2 loss to the Flint Firebirds at the GFL Memorial Gardens.
The goals came after the Greyhounds took a 2-0 lead through 40 minutes in the Ontario Hockey League contest. Dean added that an increase in Wednesday night games of late have made it an issue. “I do think it showed today in our first period, but I loved our response in the first half of the second,” Dean said.
“We did a great job of responding and giving ourselves a great chance to win a hockey game.” Dean added that in the second half of the second period he felt the Greyhounds got “a little bit run-and-gunny.” “The third period, there’s some things there that are outside of our guys hands,” Dean added, referring to a too many men call that put the teams 4-on-4.
“We have a linesman that clearly wanted to get involved in a hockey game,” Dean said. “We were about to go on the power play and he decides to call too many men on the ice. He actually was in the way of our guy changing and it still wasn’t close to too many men on the ice.
“I don’t know why the referees allowed the same linesman to participate in a goaltender (interference) challenge,” Dean also said. “There’s bias there clearly. I don’t know why a linesman is involved in looking at the tablet and aiding in that call.
It’s very confusing to me. It’s very disappointing that someone that doesn’t need to be part of the game becomes part of it.” Dean added that “by no means am I saying that that’s the sole reason that we lost.
” Despite getting away from their game in the early stages of the second period, Flint coach Paul Flache said there was a lot of good things for his team in the victory.” “The biggest thing was that we really liked our first period and got away from it a little bit in the second period, but we felt like our game was trending in the right direction,” Flache said when asked what was said to his team after the second period. “We were going to get our bounce, we just had to finish our chances that we got.
” Flache added that he felt the third period was more of the way the Firebirds opened the game. “We were relentless on pucks; we don’t want to take that penalty late there, but to get that big kill, our goaltender (Noah Bender) held us in there too,” Flache said. “The biggest thing is just roll with the punches and try to get that momentum back.
I liked our response in the third period.” Flache agreed that the win was a character one for the Firebirds. “Going down 2-0 after the first period we had wasn’t easy to swallow,” Flache said.
“They way the guys responded in the third period, kept pushing and pushing, hopefully this is the turning point we needed.” Both coaches referred to a goal by Firebirds forward Kaden Pitre in the opening seconds of the third period as having an affect on both clubs. “It was a good stick on puck on the D to D pass,” Flache said.
“It’s good to get one that early. It gives the bench some life and some juice on the bench and they’re ready to go. We needed that one for sure.
” “When you’re mentally fatigued and going into a period like that knowing you have to hold the fort and they’re going to put a push on, a goal going in in eight seconds, it’s deflating and makes your legs feel a little more tired. Lots of mental mistakes in the third period for sure.” After a scoreless opening period in which the Firebirds outshot the Greyhounds 8-4, the Sault opened the scoring at – of the second period as Marco Mignosa skated into the left faceoff circle and proceeded to beat Flint goaltender Noah Bender with a shot stick side.
The Greyhounds added to the lead 2:24 later as Brady Smith took a pass in the left circle from Andrew Gibson and beat Bender glove side on the power play to make it a 2-0 game. Flint pulled to within one goal off the opening faceoff of the third period as Pitre skated into the Greyhounds zone and forced a turnover before eventually stuffing in a loose puck after not being able to beat Sault starter Charlie Schenkel initially. Flint tied the game as defenceman Blake Smith took a pass in the left circle from Chris Thibodeau and beat Schenkel with a shot from the circle and the teams playing 4-on-4 at 7:14.
Smith gave the Firebirds the lead two minutes later as he got the puck in the left circle from Matthew Mania and beat Schenkel glove side. Smith finished the night with a goal and an assist for the Greyhounds. Schenkel made 20 saves in the loss.
Bender stopped 22 shots for the Firebirds. The Greyhounds three-game homestand wraps up Sunday afternoon with a game against the Windsor Spitfires before heading out on a three-game road trip next week. The team will face the Niagara IceDogs on Thursday, the Erie Otters on Friday, and the Brampton Steelheads on Sunday.
The Greyhounds will take a record of 11-9-0-0 into Sunday’s contest against Windsor. With the win on Friday, Flint improves to 8-11-0-1. In roster news for the Greyhounds, goaltender Reid Thomas has been reassigned by the Greyhounds.
The 17-year-old goaltender has joined the Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League’s Blind River Beavers. The Greyhounds also confirmed late Friday night that forward Justin DeZoete is in the process of being released by the team. The overage forward did not play in Friday’s game against the Firebirds.
Owen Allard, Christopher Brown, and Charlie Hilton remain out of the lineup due to injury for the Greyhounds..
