They got two points, but that’s one of the few good things that came out of the final game of the Soo Greyhounds three-game road trip on Monday afternoon.
While he feels like there are some “good lessons to be had” from the first trip of the season, Greyhounds coach John Dean still feels as though a 5-3 win over the Windsor Spitfires at the WFCU Centre in Windsor Monday wasn’t a pretty one.
“If we feel like we played a good hockey game, then we’re not evaluating ourselves properly,” Dean said after Monday’s win.
Dean said the feeling following the same was that “we played maybe 10 good minutes in that hockey game,” calling the game “unstructured, undisciplined, selfish hockey for 50 minutes.”
“Our skill just happens to be really good, so we happened to score a couple power play goals, a really nice goal off the rush that allows us to come out with two points that were completely deserved,” Dean added.
Overage forward Jack Beck called it “a super sloppy game by us.”
“We weren’t sticking to our structure, and we were lucky we won on skill,” Beck added. “It’s not going to be like that all year.”
Overcoming winning based solely on skill is a matter of getting back to basics.
“You have to get back to the simple stuff,” Beck said. “Maybe you have to go, dump in a puck, finish a hit, have a good track back, and the guys will feed off of that. It’s a contagious thing.”
Dean added that it’s not uncommon for a team that has won games strictly on skill to continue to do so, but it’s a scenario that doesn’t always work.
“When you find success outside of structure, it’s natural for young hockey players to think that it’s okay to keep doing that,” Dean said. “I thought we were going to learn our lesson from the Sarnia game, but clearly we haven’t.”
Following a weekend that saw them pick up four out of six points to remain atop the Ontario Hockey League’s West Division, Dean said the message to the players is a simple one at this point.
“It’s not to read the standings,” Dean said. “We have a lot of work to do.”
“We’re getting by on skill alone and more structured teams are showing us, like Sarnia’s more structured than us and they showed,” Dean said. “Windsor’s more structured than us and it showed.”
The Greyhounds opened the scoring as rookie forward Travis Hayes picked a loose puck out of the skates of Windsor forward Aidan Castle in the slot and proceeded to beat Spitfires goaltender Joey Costanzo at 13:09 of the opening period.
Windsor tied the game at one thanks to a goal by Liam Greentree later in the period. The sophomore forward took a short pass in the slot from Cole Davis and beat Greyhounds goaltender Charlie Schenkel from in close at 17:14.
The Greyhounds took the lead for good at 2:17 of the second period when overage forward Jack Beck went to the net and took a pass from Jordan D’Intino before beating Costanzo to make it a 2-1 game.
Justin Cloutier made it a 3-1 game by driving the net and having a rebound of a Kirill Kudryavtsev shot from the left circle deflect off him and past Costanzo at 13:02.
The Greyhounds took a 4-1 lead into the dressing room through two periods after Arttu Karki beat Costanzo with a one-timer from the right circle off a cross-ice feed from Beck on the power play as time expired in the period.
In the third, the Greyhounds took a 5-1 lead as Karki picked up his second power play marker of the day at 11:10. The Finnish blueliner beat Costanzo with a one-timer from the top of the right faceoff circle on a pass from Brenden Sirizzotti to extend the lead.
Windsor cut into the lead when Colton Smith tapped in a loose puck off the goalline after Charlie Schenkel stopped Oliver Peer’s initial shot from the left faceoff circle at 13:57 of the third.
Greentree then made it a two-goal game with his second of the day at 15:46. Greentree scored on a rebound after Schenkel stopped a shot by Carson Woodall from the right point initially on the play.
In addition to the two-goal day for Karki, Beck had a goal and a pair of assists in Monday’s victory. Sirizzotti also picked up a pair of points in the win, assisting on two goals for the Sault.
Schenkel stopped 30 shots for the Greyhounds.
“Charlie was good,” Dean said.
“If Charlie’s not in net, we don’t even come close to winning that hockey game,” Dean added.
Dean also referenced a pair of saves made by Schenkel with the score still tight that were critical for the team in the win.
“It bides you some time to sort things out,” Dean said.
The Greyhounds return to action on Friday night in the opening game of a short two-game homestand. The Greyhounds will face the Ottawa 67’s on Friday night and the Owen Sound Attack 24 hours later. Puck drop at the GFL Memorial Gardens for both games is set for 7:07 p.m.
Forward Connor Clattenburg was eligible to return to the Greyhounds lineup for Monday’s game after sitting out the opening five games of the season due to a suspension that carried over from the last game of the 2022-23 regular season.
Dean said Clattenburg is currently nursing an injury and is out day-to-day at this point.
The OHL announced Monday morning that Greyhounds forward Jordan D’Intino was named player of the week after scoring four goals and seven points in three games last week.
The offensive outburst included a three-goal, five-point performance on Saturday night in an 11-3 win over Flint.