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Colts come to Sudbury and cool off the Wolves

Wolves' five-game win streak comes to an end

The Barrie Colts sent the Sudbury Wolves back down to earth with a 4-1 win that snapped the Wolves five game winning streak.

Sudbury had their chances early, but two quick goals at the end of the first period then two short-handed goals 22 seconds apart in the second ended the Wolves' night.

“We started out strong, we were in their zone, we were playing hard and we got away from it. We started playing fancy, we started cutting across blue lines and they’re a good team, you turn the puck over they’re going to score. We gave them way to many opportunities from breakaways to 2 on 0's and you don’t deserve to win,” said Wolves Head Coach Cory Stillman.

Stillman said the message wasn’t too elaborate after the game.

“Shows you have to play for 60 minutes not 10,” said Stillman. “That’s a team there, they’re a good team, they can score goals and they prove it night-in-night-out. We weren’t good enough tonight.”

Still, the Sudbury Wolves are 6-3. Last season it wasn’t until Nov. 3 that they picked up their sixth win.

“As an older guy, I’ve been on winning teams, I’ve been on losing teams, I can tell you this is a winning team,” said Cole Candella.

The CHL rankings came out this week and the Wolves were eighth in the country.

It was talked about over and over as the week went on and perhaps too much with 60 games left in the season.

“Sometimes that might get in guys heads saying we think we’re a lot better than we are. I think every team in this league is really good. Try not to look at that stuff, I remember my first year playing in Belleville we were fifth I think in the CHL rankings and then we kind of hit a wall because we let it get to our heads,” said Candella.

“I think that’s one thing that we can’t look at as much, yeah it’s great to be up there, but that doesn’t mean we can just pack it in and say here we are, we’re at the top. It’s something we got to look at and be like okay there’s a lot more.”

The pressure didn’t seem to get to Sudbury early as they started out strong in the first period outshooting the Colts and out chancing them.

A great passing play between David Levin and Blake Murray, who slid the pass across to Quinton Byfield, but the puck jumped over his stick as he tried to finish it at the side of the net.

Moments later the Wolves on another two-on-one and Murray was stopped by Jet Greaves, so was Kirill Nizhnikov on the rebound.

With less than two minutes to play in the second, Lucas Chiodo, better known as the Wolves hunter tipped a pass from behind the net to Ben Hawerchuk who beat Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen blocker side.

Chiodo came into the game with seven points in two games this season against Sudbury and 14 in eight games last season.

Fifty-nine seconds later Justin Murray scored from the middle of the zone past the blocker side of Luukkonen.

The Wolves had been there before, although probably not a stat you want to have, they had trailed by two goals in six of their eight games with a 4-2 record in those games.

Sudbury had a five-on-three in the second period, a perfect opportunity to come back but once again Jet Greaves shut the door and when it became a five-on-four Barrie took advantage of turnovers with Matej Pekar scoring unassisted.

22 seconds later Lucas Chiodo dangled around the Wolves and beat Luukkonen which spelled the end of the night for the goalie who came into the game with a perfect 5-0 record to start his OHL career.

Jake McGrath took over, stopping 13 of 13 shots.

Stillman thought McGrath played extremely well when he got in there but he wouldn’t commit to who he would start against Niagara on Sunday.

David Levin scored in the third period but it was way too late.

Cole Candella believes they can take lessons learned and bring it on Sunday.

“Well you know we talked about it and it’s the same thing when we got a 10-3 loss against Barrie last time, how we reacted after and how we came back from that. This is a team that’s very relentless that’s a word I would classify us as, we don’t give up. Some nights we’re not going to be our best and that’s when you got to play simple hockey but I think our team is really strong from forwards all the way down to our goalies, we just got to figure a way to do it every night,” said Candella.

Niagara is a top team that just beat Barrie on Thursday by a score of 7-2.

“They’re going to be ready to come in and they’re on the road now, they’ve got to win some hockey games. Tonight’s over with, we’ll practice tomorrow and be ready to play Sunday,” said Stillman.
 


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