While it wasn’t a work of art, the resiliency they showed made it worth it.
After having a pair of goals overturned after video review, including a potential overtime winner, the Soo Greyhounds used a shootout goal by Kalvyn Watson to beat the Sudbury Wolves 3-2 in Ontario Hockey League action at the Sudbury Community arena.
The Greyhounds thought they had the game won in overtime when Watson scored midway through the extra frame only to have the goal waved off after a review for an offside.
Watson would proceed to end the game in the shootout, beating Sudbury goaltender Kevyn Brassard high glove side, chipping the puck over the Sudbury netminder to give the Greyhounds the victory.
Greyhounds coach John Dean said he was impressed with the way his team handled the overtime goal being disallowed.
“They handled it fantastic,” Dean said. “When it’s so black and white, those are easy calls to accept and move on from. It was emotionally draining for sure, but our bench, I didn’t say anything. The bench was so calm and poised to start again."
“Obviously it was frustrating,” Watson said. “We didn’t see any video, didn’t have any idea that it was offside. We didn’t think it was. It was definitely weird having to come back to the bench and continue to play after we thought we ended it.”
Watson said “it felt awesome” to score the shootout winner.
Dean said he was proud of his team.
“This is still a weekend that we’re going to need to learn from,” Dean also said. “It was not a weekend full of quality hockey, but at the same time, to grab two points in the position that we’re in now, three games in four nights, two games in 16 hours, all the controversy during the game, bodies lost, it’s tough not to be excited about the resilience of this group.”
“Anytime you go through the adversity we went through today and were still able to come out with the two points, it shows a lot of character about our team,” Watson said.
Sudbury opened the scoring with just over five minutes to go in the opening period when a point shot by Nolan Collins deflected in off the glove of Greyhounds goaltender Samuel Ivanov.
Watson’s overtime goal was actually the second Greyhounds marker waved off after a review.
The Greyhounds thought they tied the game at one in the opening period shortly after Collins’ goal when Bryce McConnell-Barker took a pass in the slot from Brenden Sirizzotti below the goalline and beat Brassard 5-hole. The goal was waved off following a review as Brassard knocked the net off as he repositioned following Sirizzotti’s pass.
The Greyhounds bench wasn’t happy with the decision and Dean had a pair of conversations with the referees about the non-goal.
Dean said the issue came down to the net coming off not being a reviewable play.
“The only thing they can review is if the puck crossed the goalline before the net goes off, which everyone knew the puck crossed the goalline after the net went off,” Dean said. “The ruling on the ice was a goal, because it was an imminent scoring chance, they knocked the net off, it didn’t impact the play and the puck still went in.”
Dean said he didn’t receive an explanation for the reason for the review.
The Greyhounds tied the game in the second period when Sirizzotti took a short pass from Watson at the Sudbury blueline, skated in alone, and beat Brassard with a deke to his backhand at 6:51.
Sudbury retook the lead at 13:03 thanks to a goal by Marc Boudreau. The former Greyhounds forward skated the puck over the Greyhounds blueline and beat Ivanov glove side from the high slot to make it a 2-1 game.
It remained that way until midway through the third period when Greyhounds defenceman Caeden Carlisle tied the game. Carlisle took a pass from Alex Kostov from below the goalline to the left of the net and beat Brassard high glove side at 9:01.
In overtime when Watson took a pass from Kirill Kudryavtsev in the slot and scored on an open net after Kudryavtsev’s drive to the net pulled Brassard out of position.
The play came shortly after Ivanov made a crucial glove save on Nick DeGrazia of the Wolves at the other end of the ice.
“I was facing their shooter, he was the biggest threat, and once that pass went over, I just did my best to compete out of it and thankfully made the save,” Ivanov said of the stop.”
In the shootout, McConnell-Barker and Sudbury’s Alex Pharand traded goals ahead of Watson’s winner in the third round.
Ivanov stopped 40 shots for the Greyhounds and two of Sudbury’s three shooters in the shootout while Brassard stopped 19 shots for the Wolves and made one save in the shootout.
“I felt sharp, confident, and I just made myself big,” Ivanov said of his last two games.
“He was just incredible,” Dean said of Ivanov’s play Saturday night in Barrie and Sunday afternoon in Sudbury. “It’s by far his best body of work.”
The Greyhounds return home to open a five-game homestand spread out over the next two weeks. The homestand begins on Wednesday night when the team hosts the Saginaw Spirit.
With Sunday’s result, the Greyhounds will take a 13-16-7-4 record into that game. The points are crucial as the Greyhounds move two points behind the Guelph Storm for seventh in the OHL’s Western Conference standings. The Greyhounds also still have one game in hand on the Storm.
At the time of writing, the Greyhounds also sit five points ahead of the ninth-place Kitchener Rangers in the conference. The Rangers were slated to face the Saginaw Spirit in Saginaw on Sunday evening in a game that was in progress at the time of writing.
Sudbury falls to 15-18-4-1 with the loss, but the single point puts the Wolves one point ahead of the Oshawa Generals for eighth in the Eastern Conference standings.
The Greyhounds lost a pair of forwards due to injury in the game.
Overage forward Mark Duarte left the game in the first period while Ethan Montroy left the game in the second period.
Dean said both left the game with upper body injuries.