Hounds rally for tie with Battalion

Slow starts can kill any hockey team.

On Friday night, the Soo Greyhounds got off to a slow start against the Brampton Battalion and it nearly cost them.

The Greyhounds, coming off a 2-0 shutout of the Sarnia Sting on Wednesday night, dug themselves into a hole in the opening period of Friday night's matchup but managed to battle back to earn a 4-4 tie with the Battalion in front of 2,685 fans at Memorial Gardens.

In the opening period, the Greyhounds got behind early as Tyler Harrison opened the scoring for the Battalion beating Hound starter Jakub Cech with the first Brampton shot of the night.

Less than a minute later, Michael Vernace, who was named the game's first star, scored his first of two goals beating Cech at 4:51.

In the second period, the Battalion opened up a three goal lead in the opening minute as Detroit Red Wings prospect Ryan Oulahen scored on Brampton's first shot of the period just 22 seconds in.

The Greyhounds got a spark offensively when hard working forward Matt Puntureri stole the puck at the Brampton blueline and proceeded to beat Brampton netminder Kevin Couture while the Greyhounds were shorthanded to pull the locals to within two.

Midway through the period, Brampton restored their three goal lead as Vernace picked up his second goal of the night at 10:52.

Less than two minutes later, at 12:37, the Greyhounds again cut into the Brampton lead as overage forward Reg Thomas scored his first goal of the season.

The Hounds pressed in the third period to get back on even terms. Late in the period, the Hounds cut the Brampton lead to 4-3 as Jeff Larsh scored his second goal of the season with just three minutes left in regulation time.

Moments later, with the Hounds putting pressure on the Brampton defence, Brad Staubitz picked up a loose puck in the right faceoff circle and beat Coture in the Brampton goal to complete the Hounds comeback and tie the game with just 14.5 seconds left in regulation.

Both teams had some quality opportunities in the overtime period to earn the extra point but neither team could get that fifth goal as the game ended tied at 4-4.

Hounds coach Marty Abrams said following the game that his club looked passive early on but managed to pick up their play as the game wore on.

"We started slow," Abrams said. "We looked a little passive in the first period. A lot of teams would fold after the first period, but we got better as the game went on."

Abrams also commented on the number of turnovers committed defensively by the Hounds during the game, specifically turnovers by the defencemen.

"We had some costly turnovers and we have to reduce those," Abrams commented. "A lot of them were unnecessary. All (the defencemen) need to do to be successful is keep it simple. They have to play within themselves.

"The thing is turnovers are a part of hockey. It happens all the time at every level. They just happen more often in junior hockey. We also caused Brampton to turn over the puck a lot tonight."

Abrams also talked about having Captain Jeff Carter in the lineup saying that his captain was not feeling any ill effects from his knee injury that kept him out of three straight games. Abrams called the Philadelphia Flyers a "thoroughbred" saying that "once he dresses (for a game) he wants to play."

Three other players also earned the praise of the Hounds bench boss. Abrams commented on the play of forwards Jeff Larsh and Chris Lawrence as well as defenceman David Jarram.

"With (Larsh) I feel there's another level to his game," Abrams said. "We're going to push him to get to that level.

"Chris Lawrence played probably his best game as a Greyhound tonight," Abrams added. "David Jarram played well too. Any time you can get that kind of effort out of two 17-year-olds it's a great thing."

Abrams also noted how much his team fed off the emotion of the fans late in the game when they were fighting to tie the game. The players all commented the emotion of the fans following the game.

With the Brampton game now in the books, the Hounds take their 1-4-1 record into a matchup with the powerful London Knights on Sunday evening at 7 p.m. at Memorial Gardens.