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Playing their third game in three nights on the road, fatigue turned into a factor for the Soo Greyhounds on Saturday night.
Finishing off their first road trip of the Ontario Hockey League regular season, the Greyhounds dropped a 5-3 decision to the Owen Sound Attack at the Harry Lumley Bayshore Community Centre in Owen Sound in what the team felt was the most physical game they faced in the young season.
Greyhounds coach John Dean said fatigue “was definitely a factor, especially against a team like that in this barn that comes very aggressively.”
Dean added that “it was pretty clear they had a gameplan to be physical on us.”
Playing their third game in three nights, Dean also said fatigue came into play on turnovers that led to goals for the Attack.
“Too many turnovers cost us, and we didn’t capitalize on our opportunities,” Dean said.
Dean called the game “by far” the most physical contest the team has been through to start the season.
“(Owen Sound) is built to play that way,” Dean said, also saying he didn’t feel like the Greyhounds were intimidated by the more physical game.
Overage forward Cole MacKay called the Attack “a hard team to play against.”
“Those are the games that, if we’re going to do something here, we need to find a way to win,” MacKay said. “They played a style that we haven’t seen yet, and we have to take what we learned tonight and be ready to play that style of game and play our game and stay away from all of the side business and counter-attack their physical play.
Owen Sound got on the board early as Stepan Machacek scored on the power play, putting a rebound off the end boards past Greyhounds goaltender Samuel Ivanov.
Andrew Perrott took the initial shot on the play, missing the net wide left, with the puck deflecting to Machacek in close.
On a power play of their own, the Greyhounds tied the game just under six minutes later as Tye Kartye took a pass in the slot from Tanner Dickinson and beat Owen Sound goaltender Mack Guzda.
The Greyhounds took the lead midway through the period with another power play marker as Bryce McConnell-Barker beat Guzda with a shot from the left faceoff circle.
Owen Sound would tie the game as Machacek picked up his second power play goal of the night with 3:38 to go in the opening period. Servac Petrovsky in the left faceoff circle sent the puck toward the Soo goal where it would deflect in off Machacek in the slot.
The Attack would take the lead as Andrew Perrott deflected a point shot by Sam Sedley past Ivanov 3:18 into the second period.
Just 44 seconds later, the Greyhounds tied the game at three as Marco Mignosa picked up his second goal of the year on a two-on-one with Tyler Savard.
With just under seven minutes to go in the second period Colby Barlow took a feed from Deni Goure while going to the net and redirected the pass past Ivanov to give Owen Sound its third lead of the night.
Just under eight minutes into the third, Gavin Bryant extended the Owen Sound lead after taking a turnover at the Soo blueline and proceeding to beat Ivanov 5-hole with a Greyhounds defender chasing him to the net.
Ivanov finished the night with 32 saves for the Greyhounds.
Perrott finished the night with a goal and two assists while Goure and Petrovsky also had a pair of assists each for the Attack.
Guzda made 41 saves for the Attack, who get into the win column for the first time this season.
With a pair of wins in the three-game trip, Dean called it “a good weekend for us.”
“We started to get an identity and it was really good for us to go through a physical, tough game like that (tonight),” Dean added. “It’s better the learn these valuable lessons now and what that looks like than in January.”
The Attack improve to 1-2-0-1 while the loss drops the Greyhounds record to 3-2-0-0 heading into a three-game homestand that opens up Wednesday night at the GFL Memorial Gardens.
The homestand will see the Greyhounds host the Sudbury Wolves on Wednesday before playing back-to-back games against the North Bay Battalion on Friday and Saturday nights. Puck drop for all three games is set for 7:07 p.m.