The Flint Firebirds came to town Friday night hungry to stop a losing streak, and they faced a Wolves team that didn’t put up much of a fight.
The Firebirds were coming off a 6-0 loss to North Bay the night before, having lost three straight and just one win in their last six, while the Wolves were rolling, picking up seven of a possible eight points in their last four games.
But it was a different story Friday as the Firebirds dictated play and beat the Wolves 3-1. For the Wolves coaching staff, it was an uninspired effort as they saw a lot of turnovers and not a lot of scoring opportunities.
“It wasn’t really one of those teams where you could play and East/West game, for some reason our guys weren’t working in that North/South fashion, to get pucks below them and behind them. As a result it was just a tough game for them to get engaged in,” said head coach David Matsos.
The Wolves have been playing without Zach Wilkie, C.J. Yakimowicz and Michael Pezzetta, who are serving suspensions. But it wasn’t the case of Sudbury needing them back in the loss.
“It would be nice to have those guys back, but the other guys that have been playing, have been doing a very good job for their club,” Matsos said. “It was just an uninspired effort, I don’t know if lazy is the right word, but I don’t think we played with the intensity we normally do.”
Flint had played the night before and Sudbury was off since Dec. 3, but Matsos didn’t blame the loss on rust and didn’t see anything in practice that led him to believe the Wolves would come out flat.
There were two positives on the evening: the most penalized team in the OHL took just one penalty, although it was an offsetting minor leading to four-on-four.
“I like it when we play hard and fair, and tonight, I don’t know, is it a result of us being a little bit too soft tonight that we didn’t end up in the box once or twice, I don’t know. I didn’t think we played a very physical, hard game,” said Matsos.
The other positive was the shutout breaking goal with 39 seconds remaining in the game, went to Owen Gilhula, his first career OHL goal.
“Everybody remembers their first, you’re happy to see a guy like that go in and get his first goal, that’s a positive for tonight,” said Matsos.
After the game Gihula was happy about the accomplishment, but not happy with the game overall.
“It was kind of a rough night for the team, but it was good to get the monkey off my back that’s for sure,” said Gilhula. “Obviously that was hanging over my head and now that it’s out of the way I can just pay my game.”
He said it wasn’t the Sudbury Wolves of late that he saw out there.
“It wasn’t our team out there that’s for sure. I mean we’re a lot better then that and we know that. But we have big test tomorrow and we’re just focusing on that.”
It doesn’t get any easier for Sudbury as the Windsor Spitfires are in town on Saturday, a team that has loaded up on talent to take a run for the Memorial Cup tourney they are hosting city this year.
When Matsos was asked what he would like to see different against the Spitfires, his answer was simple.
“A win.”
Sudbury moves to 13-15-2-0 with the loss, while Flint moves to 15-13-0-2. The Spitfires come into town with a 19-5-4-0 record, good enough for 4th in the Western Conference, just four points out of first.
