For a team that had little trouble scoring goals through six games, a return home saw a vast change in that for the Soo Greyhounds.
A team that scored 36 goals through six games to open the season, which was among the top offensive totals in the Ontario Hockey League at the time, the Greyhounds mustered just one over 120 minutes of action during a weekend homestand.
The struggles offensively included a 4-0 whitewash at the hands of the Owen Sound Attack on Saturday night at the GFL Memorial Gardens.
Exactly what went wrong for the Greyhounds offensively in the two-game stretch, which included a 2-1 loss to the Ottawa 67’s on Friday night?
“We don’t get to the interior at all,” said Greyhounds coach John Dean. “We don’t get inside the dots in the offensive zone and that’s a big piece. We’re not hungry enough for the dirty goals in front of the net. We like to score the fancy ones.”
Dean added that because of the issue, the team isn’t drawing penalties.
“A big part of our offence is our power play,” Dean added. “We feed off that. Today we had a great power play, but didn’t score, but if you don’t get to the interior, you’re not going to draw penalties. They go hand-in-hand.”
Dean added that defensive zone exits were not good in either game.
Owen Sound coach Greg Walters said following the Attack victory that he was pleased with the ability of his club to make things difficult offensively for the Greyhounds.
“Obviously, they’re the highest scoring hockey team in Canada and we had to stay on top of them and make sure they had to go through four or five of us to get to our net,” Walters said. “They’re extremely skilled and extremely well-coached and we’ve got one of the best goalies in the league and he showed it tonight.”
Walters had additional high praise for goaltender Carter George in the victory.
“He plays like a 19- or 20-year-old,” Walters said of the 2006-born netminder. “He’s so calming for our team. You look right at the Sault’s first power play, he made three unbelievable saves. They go up 1-0, the have all the momentum and they’re coming right back down our throat.”
After the teams skated to a scoreless opening period, Cedrick Guindon opened the scoring early in the middle frame for the Attack.
The veteran forward found himself near the edge of the crease where he redirected a pass from Sam Sedley past Charlie Schenkel 3:45 into the period.
Colby Barlow made it a 2-0 game 2:17 later when he created separation with a Sault defenceman in the slot and then beat Schenkel with a shot off a feed from Guindon below the goalline.
The Attack took quick advantage of a double minor to the Greyhounds later in the period as Servac Petrovsky beat Schenkel from the top of the left circle five seconds into the power play. Guindon won the faceoff clean back to the import forward to set up the goal midway through the period.
Defenceman Braedyn Rogers capped off the scoring with his first OHL goal 66 seconds into the third. The blueliner beat Schenkel glove side, ending the night for the Sault netminder.
Schenkel finished the night stopping 17 of 21 Owen Sound shots in the slots. Landon Miller stopped all four shots he faced in relief in just under 19 minutes of work.
“One of the big things is, two pucks go in that he could have stopped on rims,” Dean said of Schenkel. “I know he’s been working on it and keeping the live puck in our end both result in goals against. Just little things like that that if he can polish up, I think you’ll see a more complete game from him.”
Guindon had four points for the Attack in the win, assisting on Owen Sound's three other goals after scoring one of his own.
“He’s an elite player that’s been snake bitten a little bit here,” Walters said of the centre. “He’s played well but wasn’t getting rewarded. As we say in hockey, as long as you’re getting chances and you’re making plays, things will take care of itself. He continued to work extremely hard.”
The Greyhounds return to action with a rare school-day game in Peterborough against the Petes on Thursday morning.
Puck drop is 11:05 a.m. in a game that opens a three game East Division trip which takes the team to Kingston on Friday night before wrapping up in Ottawa on Sunday afternoon.
As a team that has taken to holding their daily practices on off-days in the morning, Dean said he hopes that will give the team a bit of an edge in Thursday's early start.
“We practice in the mornings, so we’re hoping that it feeds into us,” Dean said. “We’re used to getting up early, waking up, having video, practicing until 11:30 so hopefully that’s an advantage for us.”
With Saturday’s win, Owen Sound improves to 4-2-1-0 through seven games while the Greyhounds’ record falls to 5-3-0-0 in eight outings.