While things looked good early on, it went downhill fast for the Soo Greyhounds on Friday night in a game that was as important as they come for a team battling for playoff positioning heading into the dog days of the Ontario Hockey League’s regular season.
After an opening period that saw them take a 1-0 lead and hold their opponent to just four shots, the Greyhounds were outshot the rest of the way and dropped a 5-1 decision to the Flint Firebirds at the GFL Memorial Gardens on Friday.
The solid start to the game wasn’t something the Greyhounds maintained, and it was a concern for a team that is currently holding onto the final playoff spot in the OHL’s Western Conference.
“That’s not acceptable tonight,” said Greyhounds coach John Dean. “That’s a big hockey game for us and we don’t want to play a full 60 is unacceptable.”
Dean said the team “looked like we came out really slow and sluggish” in the second period after outshooting the Firebirds 9-4 in the opening 20 minutes.
“We looked like a team that maybe thought it was going to come easy and there was an element of we were unhappy we were working so hard and were yet to be rewarded,” Dean added. “We started to cheat. We started to extend shifts. All the little things we did so well in the first went out the window.”
A penalty shot save on Bryce McConnell-Barker in the second period by Flint goaltender Nathaniel Day was “the turning point in the game” for Firebirds coach Ted Dent.
Dean said the penalty shot “added to our frustration” in the second period.
“It’s a battle of attrition these games,” Dean added. “Who’s going to trust their structure the longest and believe that it’s going to work over 60 minutes. They definitely trusted their structure for a longer period of time and we got frustrated with ours.”
Dean added that, in the third period, the Greyhounds “looked like a defeated team.”
“We looked dialed into our structure,” Dean said. “We looked like we really wanted to compete in our own zone. We thought we mismanaged the puck a little poorly at the blueline, but for the most part got the puck in deep and created some opportunities for ourselves.”
The Greyhounds opened the scoring with 1:24 to go in the opening period as Marco Mignosa poked in a loose puck in the crease after Day made a stop Christopher Brown from the left circle.
The Greyhounds had an opportunity to go up by a pair midway through the second period when McConnell-Barker was given a penalty shot, but the Greyhounds captain was stopped trying to go 5-hole by Day.
Flint got on the board at 12:28 of the second period when Nolan Dann redirected a pass at the edge of the crease from Braeden Kressler on the right side past Greyhounds goaltender Samuel Ivanov to tie the game at one.
Flint took the lead when Zacharie Giroux got the puck in the left faceoff circle and beat Ivanov high short side with 1:17 to go in the period.
“Getting a lead was nice because we’ve been chasing games lately,” Dent said of the Firebirds pulling ahead at the time.
The Firebirds made it a 3-1 game 39 seconds into the third period when Dann took a shot from the left faceoff circle that beat Ivanov glove side.
The Firebirds went up by three with 6:14 to go in regulation time when Marko Stojkov beat Ivanov with a shot from the point.
Gavin Hayes made it a 5-1 game when he scored into an empty Sault net with 4:26 to go.
Ivanov stopped 26 shots for the Greyhounds.
In addition to the two-goal night for Dann, Hayes and Giroux had a goal and an assist each for Flint while Tristan Bertucci added a pair of assists in the victory.
Day stopped 26 shots for the Firebirds.
The Greyhounds return to action on Saturday night at home against the Hamilton Bulldogs in a 7:07 p.m. start at the GFL Memorial Gardens.
With the loss, the Greyhounds fall to 14-17-7-4 on the season.
The loss took on added significance as they fell four points behind the Firebirds in the OHL’s Western Conference standings for sixth.
The Guelph Storm move two points ahead of the Greyhounds and into seventh in the conference thanks to a 6-4 win at home over Peterborough on Friday night.
The Greyhounds are now three points ahead of the Kitchener Rangers for eighth in the conference after Kitchener picked up a 4-2 win over the Ottawa 67’s.
With the win, the Firebirds improve to 20-18-2-1.
On the injury front for the Greyhounds, Charlie Schenkel, Andrew Gibson, Mark Duarte, Owen Allard, and Connor Toms remain out of the lineup.
Dean said Friday night that he doesn’t expect any to return to the lineup against Hamilton on Saturday night.