BY SCOTT HUNTER HADDOW
The Sudbury Wolves are in the OHL records
books, albeit for the wrong reason.
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Sudbury Wolves forward Alex Eaton
gets knocked over in front of the London Knights net
Sunday evening at the Sudbury Arena. The Knights
entered the OHL record books by extending their
undefeated streak to 26 games to start the 2004-2005
season with a convincing 3-0 win. |
The Wolves were defeated 3-0 by the London
Knights Sunday evening at the Sudbury Arena.
With the win, the Knights established a new
OHL record with 26 consecutive games without a loss.
The talented and very skilled Knights are now
25-0-1. The previous mark was held by the 1983-84 Kitchener
Rangers, who won 25 straight games.
London head coach, and former Wolves'
player, Dale Hunter was humble in victory and gave credit to
his troops for breaking the record.
"It's special to do it here," said
Hunter. "It's the kids that come out every night that have
to get the bumps and bruises. I am glad for them that they
sacrifice and they got the record because of it."
Wolves' head coach Mike Foligno, despite
the result, will use the game to gauge his team's direction
and potential to take the next step.
"They are a strong team," said Foligno.
"It's not a team that was built over night. It's taken
the last four or five years to put that team together. It's
a good measuring stick for our team and for our players.
"I wish we almost played them 10 (or) 15
times a year because it would really force development a lot
quicker, and give the players an opportunity to realize how
much better we can be, and how much harder we have to work and
what areas we need to work on to be one of the best teams in
the league."
Foligno was satisfied with the effort put
forth by his players.
"They played hard, we just didn't execute
very well," said Foligno. "You have to look at some of the
special areas of the game to see how they beat us.
"Special teams is their strength. They're
top in the league for power play and top in the league for
penalty killing. They scored one short handed goal and two
power play goals, but I thought five-on-five, we matched them
chance for chance.
"It's a good learning tool. Nobody died
from this game. We're still standing up and we're
assessing our team. We live to fight another day, and
hopefully, this will jump start our team to getting some
wins."
The Knights opened the scoring in the first
period on the power play when Rob Schremp roofed a hard shot
from the side of the net past Patrick Ehelechner at 6:06.
The Wolves battled hard for every inch of
ice, but couldn't crack the defensive barrier the Knights
threw up.
The Knights added to their lead minutes later
when Dave Bolland, while short handed, jumped on a defensive
miscue by Nick Foligno in his own zone and wired a shot by
Ehelechner at 13:33.
The Knights padded their lead in the second
period when Schremp blasted a shot by Ehelechner at 11:31 on
the power play.
In the end, the Knights' passing ability
and overall team communication kept the Wolves at bay for the
rest of the game, and sealed their place in the OHL record
books.
The loss wrapped up a terrible weekend for
the Wolves, who have now lost five games in a row.
On Friday night at home, the Wolves let a 2-0
lead slip away and lost 3-2 in overtime as Luch Aquino scored
the winner with only nine seconds left in the extra
period.
Rafal Martynowski continued his solid play,
scoring both Wolves goals.
Saturday night in Owen Sound, the Wolves
again led 2-1 and let the lead slip away as they lost a tough
4-2 contest to the Platers.
The Wolves are back in action this Wednesday,
when they travel to Sault Ste. Marie to resume the Bell Cup
Challenge with the Greyhounds.
The Greyhounds lead the series with two wins.
The other game ended in a draw. Game time is 7:30 pm. Catch all
the action live on 790 CIGM with Stew Kernan calling the play
by play.
