It was an unforgettable night.
Soo Greyhounds forward Marco Mignosa earned the praise of his coaches and teammates Thursday night with what his coach called “a world-class performance.”
Mignosa had four points, which included scoring three goals in the second period, as the Greyhounds snapped a four-game losing skid with a 7-4 win on the road against the North Bay Battalion.
“Marco is a leader who is sick and tired of losing,” Greyhounds coach John Dean said of Mignosa’s performance. “He decided to take matters into his own hands and put in a world-class performance tonight.”
Dean added that Mignosa’s second goal, which came shortly after North Bay had a goal called back that would have tied the game at three, “huge.”
“Especially given the way things have run their course over the last little while where we’ve struggled with leads,” Dean added. “To get that call and then for us to go right back and Miggy does a one-man performance, it relaxed us a bit.”
Mignosa said the Greyhounds struggles prior to Thursday’s victory, it was a fair statement that the veteran forward was sick and tired of losing.
“It sucks,” Mignosa said of losing. “Everybody is kind of pissed off (about losing), not just me, but we responded well tonight.”\
“We stuck to it for the most part,” the veteran added. “We had a very strong 40 minutes. The last 20 wasn’t too good, but we stuck with it and came out with the win.”
Playing on a line with Mignosa on Thursday, Brady Martin called Mignosa “phenomenal.”
“Playing on his line is easy,” Martin added. “He’s an amazing player.”
In a battle for positioning in the Ontario Hockey League’s Western Conference playoff race, the two points from the win were critical for the Greyhounds.
“The guys knew the importance of the game,” Dean said. “Our O zone was very good tonight. (It was) one of our best offensive performances as far as possessing the puck and making good plays. Our exits were clean. Execution was good. I still think we need to clean up our third period, but all in all, that was a great performance given the magnitude of the game.”
“We had an identity tonight,” Dean also said. “I felt like we had purpose and intent to our game tonight.”
North Bay coach Ryan Oulahen said he felt his team was “a step behind” in the loss.
“Tough night, obviously a tough result,” Oulahen in an interview with BayToday. “Give Soo some credit, they came in here and played a good game. There were things that we knew they were going to do; we just had a hard time transitioning to it.
“I thought we were a step behind, little bit slow, and when you’re playing them, you have to play on your toes and play fast or else you’re chasing the puck a lot and I found we were doing that for most of the game. We have to find a way to turn the page real quick.”
The Greyhounds got on the board first as Brady T. Smith found himself off to the left of the North Bay goal and took a pass from Noel Nordh below the goalline and proceeded to beat Battalion netminder Mike McIvor short side on the power play 2:36 into the opening period.
North Bay tied the game at one as Jacob LeBlanc beat Greyhounds starter Landon Miller with a shot from the high slot stick side on the power play at 19:02.
The Greyhounds retook the lead 1:11 into the second period as Travis Hayes deflected a shot by Hunter Solomon past McIvor to make it a 2-1 game.
On an odd-man rush, Mignosa extended the lead to 3-1 as Chase Reid took a pass in the right circle from Hayes and sent it to the slot where it deflected off Mignosa and past McIvor at 3:30.
North Bay cut the lead to one as defenceman Bronson Ride stole the puck from Nordh near the Battalion blueline and proceeded to beat Miller on a shorthanded breakaway to make it a 3-2 game at 9:35.
North Bay thought they had tied the game later in the period when Zach Wigle grabbed a defensive zone turnover by the Greyhounds and proceeded to beat Miller with a backhand in close, but the goal was called back due to an offside earlier in the play.
Mignosa then made it a 4-2 game at 15:31 as he split a pair of Battalion players in the right faceoff circle and went to the net before sliding a backhand past McIvor on the power play.
The veteran forward then capped off his hattrick as he took a pass from Martin on an odd-man rush and beat McIvor from the left faceoff circle with the Greyhounds shorthanded at 16:52 of the second period to make it 5-2.
Martin then made it a 6-2 game with the Greyhounds on a two-man advantage as he got the puck in the left faceoff circle and beat McIvor high short side at 11:01 of the third period.
As Ride came out of the penalty box, the veteran defenceman made it a 6-3 game as he took a pass from Lirim Amidovski and proceeded to beat Miller on a breakaway 58 seconds later.
North Bay had a second goal waved off late in the third after a shot by Parker Vaughan was blocked before Nick Wellenrieter knocked in the rebound with his head. The goal was waved off after a short review.
The Battalion did eventually make it a 6-4 game when Ethan Procyszyn cut to the net and beat Miller with a backhand at 17:07 before Martin sealed the victory with an empty net goal with 21 seconds to go.
Mignosa finished the night with three goals and an assist to pace the Greyhounds offensively.
Martin added two goals and an assist while Hayes had a goal and a pair of helpers for the Greyhounds. Nordh also had a three-point night with three assists for the Sault.
Reid assisted on a pair of goals for the Greyhounds.
Miller stopped 19 shots in a spot start for the Greyhounds. Nolan Lalonde was scheduled to start, but Dean said the overage netminder “had a small tweak” in warmup and was kept from starting the game as a precautionary measure due to a lower body injury.
McIvor stopped 28 shots for the Battalion.
The Greyhounds road trip continues on Saturday night with a game in Barrie against the Colts before wrapping up the weekend in Oshawa against the Generals on Sunday afternoon.
With the win, the Greyhounds improve to 20-27-1-1 on the season and move four points ahead of the Owen Sound Attack for eighth in the Western Conference standings. The team also pulls to within three points of the Flint Firebirds and Sarnia Sting though all three clubs have a game in hand on the Sault after being idle Thursday night.
The Attack are scheduled to face Kitchener on the road on Friday night while the Storm host the Battalion and Flint is on the road to take on Kingston.
In a playoff battle of their own in the Eastern Conference, the Battalion fall to 18-26-3-0 and sit one point behind the Ottawa 67’s for the eighth and final playoff spot in the conference standings.