Friday may have been Valentine’s Day, but there wasn’t much to love for the Soo Greyhounds.
The Ontario Hockey League club, in a battle for a playoff spot in the league’s Western Conference, struggled out of the gate and couldn’t recover against the OHL’s elite Friday night.
A 5-0 deficit through 20 minutes led to a 7-3 defeat at the hands of the London Knights at Canada Life Place in London Friday in the opening game of a three-game weekend road trip.
The Knights scored five times in just under 11 minutes to put the Greyhounds in a hole they couldn’t climb out of.
“When you start like that, it’s difficult against a team like that,” Greyhounds coach John Dean said.
“They were extremely hungry around our net,” Dean also said. “It’s something we talked about quite a bit, their movement in the offensive zone, and for the first ten minutes, it just looked like we could not handle it.”
For the Greyhounds, rookie goaltender Noah Tegelaar got the start, his first in the OHL after signing with the club on Thursday. It was a forgettable night in some ways, but Dean said the team didn’t make things easy on their new teammate.
“We gave him a very difficult start and the team doesn’t play well in front of him,” Dean said of Tegelaar. “It’s a tough combination for your first game.”
Dean said, considering the workload in the game, he was “very happy with his effort and his ability to fight when the team in front of him had a very difficult time.”
Tegelaar was pulled after the opening period and replaced by Landon Miller for the final 40 minutes.
Asked about Miller entering the game in relief, Dean said the second year netminder filled in well.
“He was good,” Dean said. “He came in and did what he was supposed to do. He allowed our guys to settle down and find our game a bit.”
With things tightening up even further in the standings and a game against the Sarnia Sting on tap on Saturday in Sarnia, Dean said the message for his team is a simple one.
“It’s obviously a very big game for us and a big game for Sarnia,” Dean said. “The messaging will be easy. They know what’s at stake. The expectation is to treat it like a playoff game.”
Sarnia currently sits five points ahead of the Greyhounds for seventh in the OHL’s Western Conference standings.
In Friday’s game, London took the lead early on as Oliver Bonk took a shot from the right faceoff circle that beat Tegelaar stick side at 8:27 to give London a 1-0 lead.
The Knights made it a 2-0 game as Jacob Julien beat Tegelaar high glove side with a shot from the right faceoff circle after taking a pass from Sam Dickinson at 10:39.
The home team kept rolling offensively in the opening period as Landon Sim potted a back-door pass from Kasper Halttunen to finish off a three-way passing play started by Sam O’Reilly at 13:58 to give London a 3-0 lead.
Henry Brzustewicz gave the Knights a 4-0 lead at 15:01 as he skated down the right-side boards before beating Tegelaar high short side from the faceoff circle.
The Knights would take a 5-0 lead into the dressing room after the opening period as Denver Barkey capped off the first period scoring by going to the net and redirecting a pass from Jesse Nurmi from below the goalline past Tegelaar at 19:05.
The Greyhounds got on the board at 7:53 of the second period as Brady Martin took a pass while going into the slot from Travis Hayes and proceeded to outwait London goaltender Aleksei Medvedev before beating the Knights netminder to make it a 5-1 game.
London got the goal back at 11:44 of the middle stanza as Easton Cowan won a race to the puck in the Greyhounds zone with London shorthanded. Cowan proceeded to hit Nurmi coming in late with a pass and the latter then beat Miller with a backhand glove side to give the Knights a 6-1 lead.
The Knights went into the dressing room after two periods with a 7-1 lead after Ryder Boulton took a pass in the left faceoff circle from Blake Montgomery and beat Miller short side at 13:49 of the second period.
Jordan Charron scored the Greyhounds second goal of the night 3:36 into the third period as he went in on a 2-on-1 with Brady R. Smith and drove the net before redirecting a pass past Medvedev.
Martin added his second goal of the night 1:41 later as he took a shot from the left faceoff circle that beat Medvedev through a London defenceman.
In addition to the two-goal night from Martin, Hayes and Marco Mignosa had a pair of assists each for the Greyhounds.
Tegelaar stopped nine of 14 London shots in the opening period. In relief, Miller stopped 22 shots the rest of the way.
Nurmi had a goal and a pair of assists.
Julien added one of each while Dickinson, Cowan, and Montgomery assisted on two goals each.
Medvedev stopped 24 shots in the victory.
With the loss, the Greyhounds fall to 20-31-1-1 and sit tied for eighth in the OHL’s Western Conference standings with the Owen Sound Attack after the latter picked up an 8-5 win at home over the Erie Otters on Friday night.
The Attack also have a game in hand on the Greyhounds heading into the weekend.
Friday’s victory improves London’s record to 42-8-1-0.