On the heels of a three-game road trip that saw three wins against some pretty stiff West Division competition in Sarnia, Plymouth and Windsor, the Soo Greyhounds returned home Wednesday night looking to knock off their Northern Ontario rivals in the Sudbury Wolves.
Although it was a little closer than they had hoped, the Soo Greyhounds squeaked out a 2-1 victory over the Wolves in Ontario Hockey League action on Wednesday in front of a crowd of 2,314 people at Memorial Gardens.
If not for the strong play of Sudbury netminder Patrick Ehelechner, the Hounds, who had a number of quality chances in the game and in the opening period when they fired 19 shots on goal, could have easily opened up a big lead over the Wolves early on.
The Greyhounds opened the scoring at 13:40 of the opening period when Colt King scored his first goal as a Greyhound on a three-way passing play with Jeff Carter and Jeff Doyle on the power play.
Just under two minutes later, Sudbury tied the game up at 1-1 when former Greyhound Sean Stefanski knocked in a rebound with Hounds goaltender Kevin Druce down and out.
The second period saw Sudbury battle back and out shot the Greyhounds 10-7 although neither team could pull ahead as the game remained tied heading into the third period.
It took nearly 13 minutes but the Greyhounds managed to pull ahead when Doyle scored his fourth goal of the season at 12:46 to put the Hounds ahead to stay when he tipped a pass from King past Ehelechner.
The Hounds top line of King, Doyle and Jeff Carter were in on both Hound goals and combined for six points with Doyle and King each adding an assist and Carter chipping in with two assists.
"They give you fits sometimes, staying on the ice a little longer then they should and such but they produce," Hounds coach Marty Abrams said of the trio following the game although he is happy with the play of all three.
Abrams was also happy with the play of Scott Dobben, who recently returned from a league-imposed 5 game suspension.
"He's been absolutely huge," Abrams said of Dobben, who was named the game's first star. "He was, no doubt, the best player on the ice tonight. He's the prototypical professional."
The work ethic that Abrams has instilled in his team is beginning to pay off and that's something that the coach is pleased with overall and says that last weekend's road trip was also good for his team.
"It's nice that we're getting some rewards for our hard work," Abrams said. "The road trip last weekend was good for the guys to get away and build chemistry. They (the players) really enjoyed it."
The Greyhounds now have Thursday off before taking on the Oshawa Generals at Memorial Gardens on Friday night at 7:30 p.m.
The home stand will continue on Sunday afternoon when the Kingston Frontenacs make their only appearance at Memorial Gardens in a 2 p.m. start.