Road trip opener sees Greyhounds' 'worst effort top to bottom'

It was far from pretty.

In fact, Soo Greyhounds assistant coach Brendan Taylor called it “our worst effort top to bottom all season.”

Even with a surge in the third period, the Greyhounds struggled through much of their Ontario Hockey League road trip opener on Thursday night, dropping a 5-3 decision at the hands of the North Bay Battalion at the North Bay Memorial Gardens.

“We probably put together 10 minutes of half decent hockey,” Taylor added. “Other than that, it was really disappointing to see.”

Defenceman Andrew Gibson concurred.

“That was our worst two periods we’ve had this year,” Gibson said. “The third period, we bounced back a little bit, but we have to play 60 minutes hard."

Taylor said he was “surprised by our start and our response to it.”

“The way that we’re rolling, I’m not sure if we’re believing our own hype a little bit and think we got there just on skill and not competitiveness and collective effort,” Taylor said.

Gibson called the first two periods by the Greyhounds “terrible.”

In addition to lost puck battles, Taylor said there was a lot that bothered him in the opening 40 minutes of the loss.

“Effort. Attitude. Execution,” Taylor said. “It was a team that I didn’t recognize, especially in possession (of the puck). We were flipping pucks and delivering pucks to teammates knee height and expecting them to make a play with it.”

For the Battalion, even when the Greyhounds grabbed a 3-2 lead midway through the final period, the confidence level was high for the home side.

“I had a feeling that when they made it 3-2, there’s no way we were going to lose this hockey game. I had the feeling we weren’t going to be denied,” North Bay coach Ryan Oulahen said in an interview with BayToday.

“We were playing too good tonight,” Oulahen added.

North Bay opened the scoring early as Ty Nelson skated into the Sault zone and beat Greyhounds starter Charlie Schenkel 5-hole from the right faceoff circle 77 seconds into the contest.

The Greyhounds wasted little time tying the game as Jack Beck beat Mike McIvor from the left circle after taking a short pass from Bryce McConnell-Barker 1:26 later.

The Battalion retook the lead in the second period as Jacob Therrien had a pass from Owen Van Steensel deflect off his skate and past Schenkel to make it a 2-1 game at 10:04 of the second period.

Brenden Sirizzotti tied the game for the Greyhounds as he jumped on a loose puck in close after it redirected off the end boards and into the slot 2:25 into the third period.

The Greyhounds took a 3-2 lead when Owen Allard scored in tight on a rebound after Travis Hayes had his initial shot stopped by McIvor at 9:07.

Therrien picked up his second of the night to tie the game at 11:24 when he scored from in tight on a rebound of a point shot by Nelson.

Brice Cooke gave North Bay a 4-3 lead when he cut in from the right faceoff circle and slid the puck past Schenkel in close with 3:48 to go in regulation time.

Van Steensel sealed the win for North Bay with an empty net goal with 20 seconds to go in the contest.

Schenkel made 33 saves for the Greyhounds in the loss while McIvor made 27 at the other end for North Bay.

The win was McIvor’s first OHL victory.

“The depth that we have in net, and Dom (DiVincentiis) leading the charge, here’s a kid that has been extremely patient and all he does is work, work, work,” Oulahen said. “Extra reps, and he’s gone down to Powassan, he’s gotten game action there, we know the capabilities this kid has.”

Van Steensel finished the night with a goal and three assists for the Battalion.

Cooke had one of each.

After a day off on Friday, the Greyhounds’ road trip continues on Saturday night in St. Catharines with a game against the Niagara IceDogs before wrapping up the weekend on Sunday afternoon against the Kitchener Rangers.

The Greyhounds will take an 11-6-0-0 record into Saturday night’s contest against the IceDogs, who will be playing in the final game of a three-in-three stretch that started Thursday night at home before the team travels to Brantford to take on the Bulldogs on Friday night.

North Bay improves to 8-5-3-1 with Thursday’s victory.