The Sudbury Wolves had their power play clicking Friday night, scoring three times with the man advantage to double up Mississauga 6-3.
“I think our power play at home, before tonight, was at 11 per cent, which we addressed and it was nice to see the PP come through for us, obviously the difference in the hockey game, said Wolves associate coach Jordan Smith. “Giving up two PK goals is not ideal, but good for us that it didn’t have a big outcome in the game.”
It was the first time this season the Wolves won two straight games.
“It’s a big win, obviously first time this year we’ve been able to win two in a row, trailing Mississauga by three points, now by one -- I mean it’s just a huge win and I’m real proud of the way the guys played,” said Smith.
It's an unusal situation for the Wolves, who are used to the weekends that kick off with a home game before they head out on the road for two. This weekend they have just the one game.
“Finally we won two games in a row,” said Zack Malik. “This is finally the game we want to play and we just need to keep it going. We were focused on this game because we knew we got just the one game so we need to win it and have a good weekend.”
Malik had his second multi-point game of his career with two assists, while Dmitry Sokolov led the way with two goals and an assist. The Wolves handed the Steelheads their fifth straight loss.
It also moved Sudbury within a point of playoff conversations.
Sudbury put on one of their better defensive efforts of the season, shutting down the Steelheads top guns. Owen Tippett and the McLeod brothers were limited to just three combined points.
“Just to limit their chances, take away their time and space,” said Smith. “If you give good players like them time, they’re going to make a play. So I think our defence corps did a great job, namely Dougy (Doug Blaisdell) and Reagan (O’Grady), shutting those guys down and it was just a total team effort.
Mario Culina made his third straight start in net for the Wolves picking up his second win stopping 34 of 37 shots.
“Culina played great in net, made some big saves especially in the first period and it’s just a great effort all around,” Smith said.
The Wolves came out with some fire and jumped on the Steelheads in the first period. The first half of the period flew by with few whistles, but Sudbury took advantage of the first hand to be raised. Six seconds into a power play for the Wolves, Michael Pezzetta scored his 13th of the season.
Zack Malik and Dmitry Sokolov picked up assists on the play.
Sokolov then made a really nice play. While the Wolves were in the Steelheads zone, Sokolov back-tracked to the point to cover for the Wolves defenceman who jumped in on the play. He was able to keep the puck in the zone and that allowed him to fire a shot from the point, which tipped off a Mississauga stick and past Emanuel Vella.
The Steelheads had won both matchups between the Central Division rivals this season on the back of Vella, but the Wolves continued to get too him in the second.
Owen Tippett scored on the power play to make the game interesting 2-1.
Emmett Serensits fired a point shot on the power play, while the play continued, the Wolves bench yelled at the referee that it went in. After the play stopped an upstairs review was called and eventually the ref signalled goal.
“I think I heard it go in but nice to hear upstairs thought so, too, so it’s always a good thing,” said Serensits. “It was kind of like quick, I was like ‘did that go in,’ and then I saw them coming down on the rush and I had to switch real quick.”
As the period was winding down, the Wolves had another power play opportunity and Sokolov took advantage of bad positioning from Vella, scoring his second of the game, 15th of the season.
Mississauga again scored early into a period, when Michael McLeod found the back of the net short handed to begin the third. But with the score 4-2 the Wolves did not take their foot off the pedal.
Darian Pilon and Macauley Carson scored 10 minutes apart, helping seal the deal for Sudbury.
Sudbury is off now until next weekend when they go for a trip to Peterborough, Kingston and Oshawa. Their next home game isn’t until Dec. 15, when Hamilton is in town.
