Greyhounds beached by Whalers

The Plymouth Whalers walked into Sault Ste. Marie on Friday night looking to increase their slim lead over the Greyhounds in the Ontario Hockey League's West Division to five points with a win.

The Whalers, who are in a battle with Sarnia for the West Division title, had been in somewhat of a slump lately with a 2-5-3 record over their last 10 games but they played what could be considered by most as a good road game, keeping the game close and pulling away late to a 4-2 win in front of a crowd of over 3,900 at Memorial Gardens.

The Whalers opened the scoring at 4:01 when Rane Carnegie, a recent acquisition from Belleville, scored after the puck deflected off a Greyhound player and past Hounds starter Kevin Druce to make the score 1-0. Carnegie scored his second of the night at 14:10 converting a feed from defenceman James Wisniewski to up the lead to 2-0.

The Hounds cut into the lead before the end of the period when defenceman Brad Staubitz beat Plymouth goaltender Paul Drew with a point shot on the power play that the netminder never saw.

In the second period, the Hounds managed to tie the game as Jeff Carter deflected home a shot by newcomer Travis Chapman at 16:05.

Any momentum gained in the period was lost late in the frame when referee Brad Beer sent the teams to their respective dressing rooms for an early intermission when a pane of glass in the northwest corner of the Gardens came loose causing a delay with just under four minutes left in the period.

When the teams came back to the ice the Whalers wasted little time regaining the lead as Brent Mahon scored with one minute left in the period to give the Whalers a lead they would never relinquish.

In the third period, the Whalers capped off the scoring as John Mitchell scored 3:35 into the period to give the Whalers the 4-2 win.

Druce stopped 29 Whaler shots in the loss while Drew stopped 40 shots to gain the win.

Despite the loss, Hounds head coach Marty Abrams was pleased with the effort his team put forth, but also said that his team will need to play well on Sunday as well if they want to knock off the London Knights.

"I don't think there were many negatives tonight," Abrams said. "(Plymouth) played a good road game. There were some positive signs. Overall, I'm satisfied. On Sunday, we need to play 5-on-5 hockey and we have to come out a lot better. We have to do against London, what Plymouth did to us tonight."

Abrams was also pleased with the play of the three newest Greyhounds in Reg Thomas, Chapman and Aaron Lewicki.

In other OHL scores from Friday night, the Sarnia Sting used an overtime goal from former Hound Colt King to knock off the Sudbury Wolves 5-4 in overtime while London received goals from four different players en route to a 4-1 victory over Saginaw.

Mike Richards and Petr Kanko each had a goal and an assist as Kitchener beat Peterborough 7-4, Guelph blanked Toronto St. Michael's 2-0 on the strength of a 26-save performance from Adam Dennis while two goals and an assist from Michael Blunden led the Erie Otters to a 5-2 win over Owen Sound.

Blair Jarrett, Dan Rudisuela and Brad Efthimou scored for Mississauga as they beat Belleville 3-2 and an early third period goal from Corey Locke stood up as the winner as Ottawa held on for a slim 5-4 win over Oshawa.

*** DEADLINE DAY:

Friday was deadline day in the Ontario Hockey League. Four deals went down on the final day of trading with London and Windsor completing two separate deals.

The first deal saw Vadim Karaga get sent to Windsor in exchange for a 15th round pick in the 2004 OHL draft. The other deal saw the Spits send defenceman Frank Rediker, along with a 2004 third round pick to London for Tom Mannino, Jeric Agosta and a 2005 fifth round draft selection.

Saginaw picked up Maxin Marion from Belleville for a 13th round pick in 2004 while the Guelph Storm picked up tough guy Cam Janssen from Windsor along with a second round pick in the upcoming draft in exchange for Ryan Garlock.