It wasn’t pretty.
It was about as far from it as it could have gotten in fact.
After falling behind 3-0 through 20 minutes before getting on the scoreboard 4:49 into the second period, the Soo Greyhounds surrendered nine unanswered goals in a lopsided 12-1 Ontario Hockey League loss to the Sarnia Sting Friday night at Progressive Auto Sales Arena in Sarnia.
Greyhounds captain Bryce McConnell-Barker called it embarrassing.
Coach John Dean said “that’s as big an egg as you could possibly lay.”
“Lack of compete, lack of detail, not moving our feet, (we were) timid, you name it,” Dean said when asked what disappointed him most about the loss. “It’s tough to swallow.”
McConnell-Barker added that the Greyhounds “gave up too many Grade A chances.”
The loss continues a stretch that has seen the team surrender 28 goals in their past three games and 43 over the course of their current six-game losing skid.
“It’s unacceptable,” Dean said of the stretch, specifically referencing the past three games.
As the team returns home for a game on Sunday afternoon, Dean said the team did video work with the players following Thursday’s loss in Windsor and the focus shifts a bit after Friday’s loss.
“At the end of the day, it’s personality and character that have to shine through,” Dean said.
Dean said that, as the score got out of hand against the Sting “we lost our intensity.”
“When you feel like something is out of reach, you start calculating the amount of work you want to put into it,” Dean said. “There was definitely a lack of intensity for sure.”
McConnell-Barker said the team held a player’s only meeting prior to the road trip.
“It’s embarrassing,” McConnell-Barker said. “We have to be more desperate and work that much harder. We’re not a team that’s going to win games based on skill. We have to work our hardest every night.”
The Sting opened the scoring as Marko Sikic beat Greyhounds goaltender Landon Miller from the right wing on a floater from just outside the faceoff circle at 10:09.
Cooper Way made it a 2-0 game at 13:46 when he found himself in the slot and redirected a pass from Easton Wainwright in the left circle past Miller.
With 13.3 seconds to go in the period, Luca Del Bel Belluz extended the Sarnia lead further as he scored on a breakaway, beating Miller with a backhand 5-hole after a Sault turnover in the Sarnia zone. Nolan Dillingham took the turnover and hit Del bel Belluz with the breakaway pass.
Just under five minutes into the second period, the Greyhounds got on the board as Kalvyn Watson took a pass near the top of the left faceoff circle, skated in and beat Sting goaltender Benjamin Gaudreau short side to make it a 3-1 game.
Sarnia restored the three-goal lead on the next shift when Sikic scored his second of the night by grabbing a loose puck in the slot and beating Miller stick side after a shot from the point by Sasha Pastujov was blocked.
Ty Voit made it a 5-1 game with a power play goal at 12:32. Voit scored on an open net with Miller out of position after Del Bel Belluz got the puck near the net and drew Miller out. Del Bel Belluz then tried to make a pass to Nolan Burke to the left of the net with the puck eventually landing on Voit’s stick.
Voit got his second of the night 1:51 later when he beat Miller with a shot from the top of the right circle high stick side through traffic in close.
Del Bel Belluz added his second of the game at 15:49 when he scored on a rebound after Miller made the initial stop on a shot by Pastujov with the Sting on the power play. The goal ended Miller’s night between the pipes.
With 25 seconds to go in the period, Burke made it an 8-1 game as he beat Samuel Ivanov in the Greyhounds goal with a shot from the right faceoff circle that beat the Sault netminder 5-hole after deflecting off defenceman Brodie McConnell-Barker on its way to the net.
Off a faceoff with 1.2 seconds to go in the period, Pastujov got the puck at the edge of the left faceoff circle off a faceoff win and beat Ivanov high glove side through some traffic in the circle.
Sarnia hit double digits 67 seconds into the third when Del Bel Belluz went to the net, took a pass from Pastujov on the right wing and slid a backhand past Ivanov to make it a 10-1 game.
Voit got his third of the game midway through the third when he scored on a one-timer in the left faceoff circle on a pass from Easton Wainwright on a 2-on-1.
Making his first OHL start, Miller stopped 19 of 26 shots before being pulled. Ivanov stopped seven of 12 Sarnia shots the rest of the way in just over 14 minutes of work.
Pastujov paced the Sting with a goal and four assists in the victory while Del Bel Belluz and Voit had four-point nights with three goals and an assist each.
Sikic chipped in with two goals and an assist.
Way and Burke had a goal and an assist each for Sarnia.
Wainwright, Dillingham, and Ethan Ritchie chipped in with a paid of assists each for the Sting and Gaudreau made 28 saves.
With the loss, the Greyhounds fall to 14-21-7-5 and sits ninth in the OHL’s Western Conference after the Kitchener Rangers picked up a 4-3 win over the Guelph Storm to move two-points ahead of the Greyhounds for the eighth, and final, playoff spot.
The Greyhounds return to action on Sunday afternoon at home when they face the Mississauga Steelheads in a 2:07 p.m. start at the GRL Memorial Gardens.
Sarnia improves to 25-14-4-2 with the win and move one point ahead of the Owen Sound Attack for third in the Western Conference. The team also moves four points ahead of the Saginaw Spirit, who dropped a 5-1 decision in London against the Knights on Friday. The Sting have won six straight.