The Sudbury Wolves fired 51 shots on Peterborough Petes goalie and Edmonton Oilers draft pick Dylan Wells, but couldn’t put enough past him as the Petes defeated the Wolves 4-2 Friday night.
“Their goalie came out play very well, we just have to get it in these guys heads that in sport sometimes we’re going to win games we don’t deserve to win, tonight we lost one that we felt we deserved to win,” said Head Coach David Matsos.
“If we play like this in a 68 game season for the most part we’re going to end up on the top side more nights than not, tonight it just wasn’t meant to be. It wasn’t from lack of effort, we just couldn’t get a break,” said Matsos.
There were three occasions where the Wolves hit the top corner of the crossbar and the puck flew out, a centimetre lower and they were goals.
“We played good tonight, but we had too many good chances and did not score. Wells is a little bit lucky,” said Alan Lyszczarczyk.
Lyszczarczyk assisted on the two Wolves goals, but had no answer other than to come back the same way on Sunday.
“We score just two goals so I don’t know, but we try every period to shoot at the net and rebound and everything but we didn’t score,” said Lyszczarczyk.
“We want to play the same way Sunday,” said Lyszczarczyk.
One thing is for sure the fans were into the game, hanging on every chance, Matsos guesses that of their 51 shots, 25 of them were good quality scoring chances.
It’s a team that is bringing their hard hat to the Sudbury Arena every night.
“These people who came tonight got their money’s worth,” said Matsos.
The first period was one of the fastest of the season with just two penalties.
The Wolves outshot the Petes 13-6, but Josh Coyle of Peterborough made one of those six count as he fired a wrist shot that went in and out of Jake McGrath’s glove and into the net.
In the second period the Petes made it 2-0 on a goal from Steve Lorentz.
Lorentz fired a shot from the left slot and it beat an unsuspecting McGrath on the blocker side.
Adam Timleck made it 3-0 with a very similar looking shot.
After that, McGrath’s night was done, in came Zack Bowman, but it wasn’t a move of disappointment from his head coach.
“He’s a young guy and he’s human, our guys battled as best they could in front of him to try get the win back, but hey. If we want to talk about McGrath tonight and those shots, lets talk about what he did for us in the Sault. That’s a positive and tonight was a positive night for us despite the two points, that was a game that’s going to be fun to cut for us for all the right reasons,” said Matsos.
Sudbury got on the board with exactly 10 minutes to play in the second period.
With the Wolves on the power play, a scramble in front led to Dmitry Sokolov banging home his ninth goal of the season.
The Wolves Liam Dunda took a unsportsmanlike conduct penalty for taunting and Logan Denoble made the Wolves pay scoring and pushing the Petes lead to 4-1.
Then the rough housing began.
David Levin collided at centre ice with Petes C.J. Clarke who had to be helped off the ice.
As the whistle blew Aiden Jamieson and Cole Fraser dropped the gloves.
David Levin was given five minutes and a game misconduct for his hit and Jamieson was given two for instigating.
The Wolves were able to kill of a five on four, then three minutes of a power play for the Petes which was huge because minutes later C.J. Yakimowicz scored his fourth of the season to make it 4-2.
Yakimowicz has eight points in nine games for Sudbury since coming over in a trade from London.
Sudbury outshot Peterborough 19-12 in the second but the best was yet to come.
With the Wolves down 4-2 it felt like the entire period was spent in the Petes zone.
Shot after shot, chance after chance and nothing was going in.
Sudbury outshot Peterborough 19-2 in the final frame.
Impressive, but the Petes were happy to escape with the two points.
Sudbury drops to 7-4-1 on the season while Peterborough moves to 5-5-0-2.
Sudbury will have tomorrow off, before welcome the 3-7-1 Ottawa 67’s to town on Sunday at 2 p.m.
