The Sudbury Wolves had the Niagara IceDogs number this season, they had won all three match-ups, but the IceDogs had a number on Friday night.
That number was seven.
Niagara strolled into town playing their second game since the quick holiday break and walked away with a 7-4 win.
The score didn’t tell the whole story as the Sudbury Wolves put up a fight, outshooting Niagara 33-31 and out-chancing them as well, especially in the first and third periods.
“For a lot of it we came and competed, and that’s what we are. It’s a tough loss when at times we played extremely well tonight,” said Wolves Head Coach Cory Stillman.
“If we break it down between periods, I thought at the start of the first ten minutes we came out strong; we had some opportunities same as the second and in the third we had it. So again, there are spurts that we’ve had but if you get that you got to get the opportunity to score,” said Stillman.
But spurts, even if they last for good chunks of the game, just aren’t going to get it done.
“Lots of times we play 90% of the game, and the 10% that we’re missing is costing us goals,” said Stillman. “We have to eliminate mistakes because mistakes are costing us hockey games.”
Despite this and a two-game losing streak after the holiday break, the dressing room doesn’t seem to be lost.
“The boys are always positive they want to win, they’re a determined group of guys, they never put their heads down. They just want to win games, they hate losing, I hate losing, everyone hates losing, so we just want to win hockey games, and everyone is working hard for that,” said Ryan O’Bonsawin.
O’Bonsawin, who is from Azilda, has spent parts of the last two seasons with the Rayside-Balfour Canadians in the Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League and last season played 35 games in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League with the Gatineau Olympiques.
He picked up his first career OHL goal in the third period.
“It just felt good to get the boys on the scoreboard, get us closer to try to win,” said O’Bonsawin.
The Wolves found themselves down 3-0 after the first period.
Ben Jones opened it up with a wrist shot goal from the middle of the slot where he was wide open.
With around five minutes to go in the first Niagara scored two goals seven seconds apart.
When the Wolves came back out for the second, Mario Culina was on the bench, and Jake McGrath had taken over.
It didn’t take long for the IceDogs to score their fourth and first against McGrath as Kirill Maksimov scored 2:25 into the period.
Anthony Tabak broke the shutout for Stephen Dhillon with a backhand shot for his fourth of the year.
Danial Singer scored on the power play to finish the second period 5-1 for Niagara.
For the second straight night, Sudbury battled back in the third as a point shot from Emmett Serensits brought the game to 5-2.
Akil Thomas answered with a goal that is sure to make the highlight reel pushing the lead back to 6-2.
O’Bonsawin scored his first OHL goal with a point shot that hit an IceDogs skate in front, and Drake Pilon finished off a nifty effort from Kirill Nizhnikov to bring it within two goals.
But with the net empty for Sudbury, Danial Singer scored his second of the game.
With the loss, Sudbury is four points back of a playoff spot with a tough schedule ahead.
The Wolves will play a New Year’s Eve afternoon game with Guelph. Then its home to London and on the road in Niagara and Hamilton.
