Multiple factors ultimately caught up to them.
Fatigue from heavy travel over the past week along with struggling on the power play made life tough for the Soo Greyhounds as the team returned home on Friday night.
The Greyhounds dropped a 3-1 Ontario Hockey League decision at the GFL Memorial Gardens against the Saginaw Spirit in the second game of a home-and-home set between the two clubs.
The game comes after a string of four games on the road that began with a game in Erie on Nov. 23 and also took the team to Brantford on Nov. 24, Mississauga on Nov. 26, and Saginaw on Wednesday night after the team had returned home early Monday morning from the weekend trip.
Greyhounds coach John Dean agreed that the schedule of late for the Greyhounds caught up with the team “a bit.”
“We’re a pretty tenacious team and we win a lot of our fifty-fifty battles and tonight I don’t think we won many of them,” Dean said. “If you’re on the losing end of fifty-fifty battles for the night, you generally don’t win hockey games. It was a little bit a result of fatigue.”
Dean added that the issue wasn’t an excuse for the team either in the loss.
“That’s a massive game and we have to get up for that,” Dean said.
For the Spirit, coach Chris Lazary expressed concern regarding the Spirit giving up odd-man rushes and allowing opponents to get in behind them defensively.
The Spirit coach said the team spent a bulk of time going over the issue between games.
“For the last 48 hours, all we looked at was video,” Lazary said. “If we could just get that guys getting behind us, breakaway, two-on-one over and over out of our game, we’ll have success.”
Lazary also noted the Spirit penalty kill, which has been among the best in the league, calling it “elite.”
The Spirit held the Greyhounds off the scoresheet in seven man advantage situations.
“Obviously our goalie has been a big part of that, but just understanding what their roles are in it and what we’re trying to accomplish inside of it and the detail that goes with a good kill, it’s been good.,” Lazary said.
Asked about the power play, Dean said “it’s got to be much better.”
Greyhounds captain Bryce McConnell-Barker spoke of “wanting to win the special teams battle every night.”
“The power play the last two games wasn’t amazing,” McConnell-Barker added. “Hopefully we can learn from what we did good and what we did bad and just take it into next game.”
Saginaw opened the scoring as Rodwin Dionicio beat Greyhounds starter Charlie Schenkel on a wraparound to the stick side at 10:55 of the opening period.
The Greyhounds wasted little time tying the game as Brady Martin poked in a loose puck in the crease after Spirit goaltender Andrew Oke stopped Alex Kostov initially 2:08 later.
Saginaw made it a 2-1 game in the second period as Hunter Haight took a pass in the right faceoff circle from Matyas Sapovaliv and beat Schenkel high stick side on the power play at 11:07.
Saginaw took a 3-1 lead at 4:08 of the third period as Zayne Parekh skated into the Greyhounds zone untouched and beat Schenkel from the high slot glove side.
The Greyhounds thought they pulled back to within one goal later in the period when Andrew Gibson beat Oke from the right wing on a sharp angle with the Spirit goaltender out of position, but the goal was challenged by Lazary for goaltender interference and ultimately waved off.
Dean said following the loss that he didn’t agree with the call, adding that forward Brady Martin “was clearly pushed into the goalie twice.”
“The onus is supposed to be on the player to avoid the goaltender, but when you get pushed twice, it makes it difficult,” Dean added. “I think that’s a clear-cut goal. I’m not knocking the refs though. In general, those goalie interference calls, if you gave it to twenty refs, ten would say one, ten would say the other and the same thing with coaches. “
In the end, Schenkel finished the night with 26 saves for the Greyhounds in the loss.
Oke stopped 27 shots for the Spirit.
After scoring a goal and assisting on two others in Wednesday’s loss, Parekh had a goal and an assist in Friday’s win for the Spirit over the Greyhounds to pace the visitors offensively.
The Greyhounds return to action on Saturday night at home against the Barrie Colts.
Puck drop is 7:07 p.m.
The locals will take a 16-8-2-0 record into the contest and hold a three-point lead over the Spirit atop the OHL’s West Division.
The Spirit, who are also in action on Saturday when they host the London Knights, hold a pair of games in hand on the Greyhounds and have a record of 15-8-0-1.
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