There’s no question their last meeting was on the minds of both teams.
How could it not be?
In the end, it was the Soo Greyhounds who used it to their advantage as they skated to a 7-3 Ontario Hockey League win over the Sarnia Sting on Sunday afternoon at the GFL Memorial Gardens.
The win came nine days after dropping a 12-1 decision to the Sting in Sarnia.
“We definitely touched on it today,” Greyhounds coach John Dean said.
“It’s two-fold,” Dean also said. “A motivator because of what happened last game and our guys are starting to feel good after our body of work this weekend. You put the two together and that creates some confidence and some motivation.”
Veteran forward Brenden Sirizzotti said the last meeting was on the minds of all of the players heading into Sunday.
“We got embarrassed that night,” Sirizzotti added. “I feel like we all kept that in the back of our minds today.”
For the Sting, coach Alan Letang agreed when asked if his team may have taken the Greyhounds lightly after the last meeting between the two clubs.
“The message was pretty clear before the game that we shouldn’t take them lightly because we know how we would respond if we played in a game like that,” Letang said.
Dean said he felt his team “played a very consistent 60."
“The big thing for me was our forecheck. We really stayed on top of their D,” Dean said. “Their D are very good at maintaining possession of the puck and controlling the game and tonight we did a good job of staying on top of them and taking away some time and space.”
Letang said that the Sting struggled to find a consistent effort through the game.
“Through the whole game, we couldn’t find three or four shifts that we strung together to hem them in,” Letang said. “They did a pretty good job of weathering the storm and rebounding after the goals.”
“We weren’t moving our feet,” Letang added. “We weren’t moving pucks as crisp as we normally do.”
For the Greyhound players, the past three games are a confidence boost.
Sirizzotti said the weekend is a “huge builder.”
“That’s a big confidence booster for us,” Sirizzotti added.
Dean said the approach after the weekend, which saw the team go 2-0-1-0, will change a bit from what it might have been after a successful stretch earlier in the year.
“I’m not going with any momentum,” Dean said.
“We’re going to prep like this week didn’t happen,” Dean said. “Previously, we’ve been very streaky and as a coaching staff, we need to learn from that mistake and we can’t read our own press clippings. We’re still a sub-500 hockey club. We’ve got a lot of work to do.”
The Greyhounds lost Bryce McConnell-Barker in the third period after he took a hit from Sting defenceman Nolan Dillingham while cutting into the Sarnia zone.
McConnell-Barker eventually left the ice under his own power and went straight to the dressing room.
The hit led to an exchange of words between Dean and Letang between the benches.
“Anytime I see my captain on the ice like that, I’m going to emotionally respond,” Dean said.
Dean added that the exchange with Letang “was just emotions.”
“I see my captain on the ice, it’s a four-goal game (and) they’re running guys all over the place, it’s a pretty easy argument for me to make,” Dean also said.
Letang said the hit comes from the style of game played by Dillingham.
“He was upset with the hit,” Letang said of the exchange. “The refs deemed it a total clean hit. I was 100 per cent behind that it was a clean hit. We’ve got guys on our back end that, if you cut across the middle with your head down, there’s a threat.”
The Greyhounds opened the scoring 3:08 into the contest as Caleb Van De Ven got the puck at the left point and beat Sting goaltender Benjamin Gaudreau with a shot through heavy traffic.
Sarnia came back with a pair of quick goals to take the lead beginning with Easton Wainwright taking a pass in the left faceoff circle and beating Greyhounds goaltender Charlie Schenkel high short side at 6:38.
The Sting took a 2-1 lead when Lukas Fischer beat Schenkel with a shot from the left wing stick moments after a faceoff win by Zach Filak deep in the Greyhounds zone.
The Greyhounds tied the game early in the second period when the Sting turned the puck over in the Greyhounds zone and Kalvyn Watson converted a pass from Marco Mignosa on an off man rush the other way at 4:28.
Sania took a 3-2 lead when Christian Kyrou beat Schenkel on a wraparound to the stick side at 8:12.
Julian Fantino tied the game at three for the Greyhounds on a back-door pass from Jordan D’Intino after a turnover near the Sarnia blueline at 34 seconds later.
Sirizzotti gave the Greyhounds a 4-3 lead at 10:22 when he beat Gaudreau on a backhand defense to the stick side on a breakaway.
Mignosa made it a 5-3 game when he skated down the left wing and beat Gaudreau high short side from the left faceoff circle at 13:50.
Justin Cloutier gave the Greyhounds a 6-3 lead 2:05 into the third period when he scored on a one-timer in tight on a pass from Mark Duarte down low.
Sirizzotti made it 7-3 just 1:54 later when he skated down the left wing and cut in, beating Gaudreau with a shot high short side.
Sirizzotti finished the day with two goals and an assist in the win to pace the Greyhounds offensively.
Cloutier, Mignosa, and Fantino added a goal and an assist each while Duarte and Matthew Virgilio assisted on a pair of goals each.
Schenkel stopped 25 shots in the victory.
Dean said Schenkel “just seems to be really confident out there and that spreads throughout the team” in his return to action from injury.
Gaudreau made 22 saves for Sarnia.
The Greyhounds return to action on Wednesday night as the team continues a four-game homestand with a game against the Saginaw Spirit before hosting the Kitchener Rangers on Friday and the Erie Otters on Saturday night.
With Sunday\s win, the Greyhounds improve to 16-22-8-5 on the season and sit three points behind the Rangers for the final playoff spot in the OHL’s Western Conference. The Rangers have a pair of games in hand and are set to return to action on Tuesday night against the London Knights.
The loss drops Sarnia’s record to 26-17-4-2. The Sting sit third in the Western Conference, one point ahead of the Owen Sound Attack and three points ahead of the Saginaw Spirit with a game in hand on both clubs.