After losing the first game at home in convincing fashion, the Oshawa Generals rebounded with a statement, beating the Sudbury Wolves 5-1 Sunday night.
But despite the lopsided score, the Wolves outshot the Generals on the strength of a 21 shot third period and head coach Dave Matsos was not down after the game.
“I thought things were okay, they capitalized on their chances early. Obviously discipline, we spent too much time in the box tonight but I didn’t mind the way our guys played,” said Matsos.
Special teams were what sparked Sudbury in game one and in game two it was the Generals putting home two power play goals and a short handed marker.
In total the Wolves were 1/5 on the power play, Oshawa 2/8, but six of those came in the first two periods.
“We got to be more disciplined, we played them five-on-five very well on Friday night, tonight you spend that much time in the box in the first 40 minutes of the game, killers get tired and guys that aren’t killers get ice cold, kind of a double edged sword,” said Matsos.
Gens goalie Jeremy Brodeur also rebounded with a 34 save performance after giving up all five Friday night.
Matsos knew after game one, this Generals team was not going to fold.
“They’re a good team that’s why they finished third,” said Matsos. “These guys are good, they had 26 or however many more points than us going into the playoffs, they finished third for a reason. Ultimately we know what we’re up against and if we can just manage ourselves on the ice discipline wise and stay out of the box, I think we’ll be okay.”
The good news for Wolves fans is as the lower seed the Pack walked into Oshawa and came away with a split.
“We came down here and it would have been great to come home with two but ultimately we’re back to home ice, we just got to protect ourselves in our home rink, we played a very good structured team,” said Matsos.
It’s going to be a very different schedule for the Sudbury Wolves and Oshawa Generals as the playoffs breed a entirely new schedule.
Many times after a Sunday game, players and staff would have upwards of five days to prepare for the next game, at worst the Wolves would have Wednesday game.
Now the series shifts back to Sudbury Tuesday and Thursday then right back to Oshawa for game five on Friday.
Now it’s going to be care and maintenance all while focusing on preparation.
“Nothing changes, rest is important and you got to manage and give yourselves some maintenance days and stuff like that. But at this point in the season if guys are not conditioned, it’s not really good enough and our guys are conditioned. I’ll give guys maintenance days that need them, other than that we’re back on track tomorrow, cutting video and getting ready for Tuesday night,” said Matsos.
Game two started much like game one, with the Generals on the attack.
Except this time the Wolves weren’t able to counter and the Gens used a man advantage to jump out front.
The Wolves found themselves having to kill off a two man advantage midway through the period.
They were able to kill off the first penalty, but on the second half Medric Mercier threw a shot towards the net, it bounced to the left side of the net where Jack Studnicka whacked it out of mid air like a baseball player with a hard hit single through short.
The Wolves got their chances but Jeremy Brodeur shut the door.
On the other side the score in the first could have been much worse if it wasn’t for Jake McGarth as the young netminder came up big with a couple big pad saves,
After one period it was 1-0 Oshawa with shots 15-9 in favour of the Gens.
The Generals continued pressure in the second period and Jack Studnicka showed off his hands.
Studnicka deked around Zach Wilkie at the Wolves blue line which gave the Generals a two on one.
Studnicka kept and went top right corner on McGrath for a 2-0 lead.
The team that gave up the most short handed goals in the league during the regular season saw that carry into the playoffs as a giveaway by Aiden Jamieson at centre ice allowed Kyle MacLean to make it 3-0 for Oshawa.
It was a goal that McGrath probably wanted back as it hit the goalies glove and trickled into the net.
After three periods the Wolves were down 3-0, and well outshot at 27-14, just managing five shots on Brodeur in the period.
The third was a much better period for the Wolves play wise but on just five shots, Oshawa was able to collect two goals, one from Matt Brassard on the power play, the other from Mason Kohn.
Sudbury got on the board late also on the power play as Dmitry Sokolov scored his second of the post season on assists from Kyle Capobianco and C.J. Yakimowcz.
Game three goes at the Sudbury Arena, Tuesday at 7 p.m.
