The Sudbury Wolves are on their first losing streak of the season as they dropped two over the weekend, capped off by a 6-2 loss at the hands of Ottawa on Sunday.
For the coaching staff of the Wolves, it was not the kind of effort they were used to seeing.
“It was a flat night; you can manage your game like this if there’s a few bodies that are flat. When every body is making plays on pucks and just handing it over to them, it’s disastrous,” said Head Coach David Matsos.
“There’s really no excuse for what happened today, other than we just weren’t ready,” said Matsos.
Sunday’s have been the Achilles heel of the Wolves in the early season.
Sudbury drops to 1-4 on the final day of the week.
“I don’t understand, I haven’t seen us put our A game together on a Sunday afternoon game to be honest, including the one in Mississauga. Shouldn’t be an issue, we practice at 2:00 every day,” said Matsos.
The Hamilton Bulldogs lost both games this weekend and remained tied with Sudbury for top spot in the Eastern Conference, so in a way it was a missed opportunity.
But there is a long way to go on the season and the Wolves players understand that, still stopping the losing streak will be key for them.
“Against Peterborough that was a tough game obviously, but it still is a loss. Moving forward it’s just stay positive in the room, nothing to get down on, got to put these two games behind us. Do some video and learn from them, kind of put those behind you we know the kind of team we are and we know what we’re capable of,” said Wolves assistant captain Michael Pezzetta.
Friday night the Wolves fired 51 shots on the Petes, and Sudbury looked like they would match that total and get more as through seven minutes of the first period the Wolves had seven shots and a goal.
“If it was a three-minute game we’d all be happy. Seven shots in the first three minutes and we finish the period with nine,” said Matsos.
But then Ottawa flipped the script and looked like they were aiming to shoot 67 on the Wolves net but finished with 56 shots and six goals.
Zack Bowman played well, keeping his team in the game with key save after key save, but eventually with that many shots, pucks are going to go in.
“He played well, he had to made some big saves for us. We hung him out to dry tonight,” said Matsos.
Some of the team thought their start was perhaps what hurt them.
“I think that we got too cocky in the first couple minutes of the game and kind of got off our game. Defensively we weren’t there, you could see by the shots, if they get 50 shots obviously we’re doing something wrong. We’re not really playing for our goalies, we’re leaving them out to dry and that’s unacceptable. We’re coming in practice tomorrow and it needs to be fixed so next weekend we can come in and do better,” said Liam Dunda.
The coaches think it also had to do with turnovers.
“Not just turnovers, on the tape turnovers. That was not a fun one to be on the bench for,” said Matsos.
The first period as mentioned started great for Sudbury, seven shots and a goal from Macauley Carson, his sixth on the season.
Then Noel Hoefenmayer answered for the 67’s and a 1:24 later Austen Keating scored for Ottawa on the power play.
After one period the 67’s led 2-1.
The Wolves started the second period like they did the first with Kyle Capobianco netting his fourth of the season off a rocket from the point on the power play.
No scoring for a while in the second and the game sat at 2-2 until the shots caught up with the Wolves and Ottawa scored three unanswered goals.
At the end of the second period, Kyle Capobianco was given a five minute major and game misconduct for a late hit on Austen Keating.
The first seven minutes of the third for the Pack was spent on the penalty kill and a few chances came after but the comeback was not in the cards.
Jared Steege capped the game off late in the third with a goal.
Sudbury has a little time off now before their next game after a busy couple of weeks.
“We’re going to give guys rest, that’s part of the balance in this league and being a pro, you have to take the days that you can. Some weeks and stretches dictate the schedule for you,” said Matsos.
Sudbury will be back at home on Friday against Oshawa.
