The local boys came to play, unfortunately for the Sudbury Wolves, Damien Giroux and goalie Cameron Lamour play for the Spirt as Saginaw topped Sudbury 4-2.
Giroux, who is from Hanmer made his second appearance in Sudbury, a year ago Saturday he scored a goal against his home town team and on Friday night he was a facilitator setting up the game-winning goal and picking up an assist on the empty net goal which sealed it.
“Having a lot of family and friends out to support Cameron and me, it was awesome to be able to get that win, especially for him getting the start,” said Giroux. “Growing up I always came to watch the Wolves play every Friday night, and I always told myself one day that I want to play in this league so to be able to come in here tonight and pick up a huge two points it was really surreal.”
Lamour, from Naughton, made his 11th appearance in net for the Spirit this season and played his first game in front of what sounded like a home game for Saginaw.
He stopped 28 of 30 shots for his 5th win of the year.
“It was a dream come true to pick up the win, ever since I was a young boy I watched the older guys here play, and I wanted to play here, I wanted to be that guy that silences the crowd. Things were looking good to start, then they kind of went downhill a bit but I am just happy we pulled out with the win,” said Lamour.
Well, there wasn’t much silencing the crowd as three full sections were cheering for the Northern contingency that also included Danny Katic from South Porcupine and Nicholas Porco from Sault Ste. Marie.
“Looking up at the crowd and seeing all my friends and family and old teammates, just awesome that they were all here for me and even Giroux to cheer us on,” said Lamour.
As for the Wolves, it was their second loss in two nights, and they drop to 1-4 since the trade deadline.
“You know what, I will put it this way, I think we’re finding ways to lose hockey games right now,” said Wolves Head Coach Cory Stillman. “We battle, we do whatever, yup we’re young, I say it all the time. We are getting better, I like us compete, I like how we’re doing some stuff, and then we make a mistake at the wrong time, and it ends up in the back of our net.”
Wolves captain Kyle Rhodes said perhaps the team is over-thinking at times.
“I think we just need to not panic too much and keep playing our game. Whatever we do you know that gives us the lead, just keep doing it, try not to think too hard about the game and just relax, play and have fun, just keep working,” said Rhodes.
Stillman said one of the biggest difference for the second night in a row was on the power play.
“Definitely our specialty teams, our power play moved it around and looked great. The difference is you don’t score, and their power play moved it around and scored,” said Stillman. “We have a unit that has a lot of skill on it and another one that has some guys that worked hard. They both had opportunities to play on it, and they both had chances to score, and you don’t, it costs you hockey games.”
Sudbury was 0/5 while Saginaw, the last place team in the OHL on the power play, was 2/2.
Sudbury was once again outshot, although the margin was much smaller on Friday night with Saginaw winning that battle 32-30.
Jake McGrath made his fifth straight start in net for Sudbury.
Sudbury went down 1-0 in the first period after Mason Kohn was taken down on a breakaway resulting in a penalty shot.
Saginaw scored their second in the second period a tip-in by Cole Coskey on the power play.
Sudbury trailed 2-0 until the final minute of the second period.
With 51 seconds left a point shot by Kyle Rhodes deflected off a Spirit player and into the back of the net for his 9th of the season.
Just 13 seconds later Blake Murray scored a beautiful wrist shot goal top shelf to tie the game at 2-2 heading into the third period.
It took a little while in the third period to get the winner, but after the Spirit killed off a penalty, Max Grondin jumped out of the box and took a nice pass from Giroux to score what was the game winner.
Sudbury falls to 12-27-6-0 on the season and has a home game against North Bay on Saturday night.
Nick Liard covers the Sudbury Wolves for Sudbury.com, provides game commentary for the Wolves on Eastlink, and serves as news director at 92.7 Rock and Kiss 105.3.
