The Sudbury Wolves played their only Wednesday home game of the season, but they will probably be begging for more after the effort brought against the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds.
The Wolves used hustle, grit and plain old hard work to hold out a 4-2 win over their Highway 17 rival.
Sudbury got four goals from four different players, three of them defencemen.
Reagan O’Grady, Cole Candella and Kyle Rhodes scored as the Wolves took the lead halfway through the first period and held on the rest of the way.
All eyes were on them as the only game in the league on Wednesday.
“Tonight we worked hard, we took a few too many penalties in my opinion but the penalty killers did a great job,” said Wolves Head Coach Cory Stillman.
Sudbury gave the fourth ranked power play six opportunities, and that’s where the Greyhounds found one of their two goals, but the Hounds weren’t able to put together much.
With the Wolves up 3-1 heading into the third period, they found themselves having to hang on against the CHL’s 6th ranked team.
“I thought we played a better third period, probably one of the better ones we’ve had when we were defending a lead. Yes we gave up a goal but, I think you look at, we out-raced a team twice on icings to score goals and the last one, the fourth one was the biggest one of the game there,” said Stillman.
The Greyhounds were able to make the game 3-2 with their net empty and still 1:33 left on the game clock.
Then David Levin showed another side of his game.
The Pilon twins beat the Greyhounds down the ice like they had done numerous times throughout the game.
“You can say whatever you want about Darian and Drake but they come and they play every night hard. They work, they score goals like that, they get under peoples skin and you know what if we can keep them playing between whistle and whistles, they’re very effective for us,” said Stillman.
David Levin was with them and he beat his man to the puck killing 20 seconds of valuable time off the clock as he held it up against the boards.
He then won the puck against a handful of Hound players in the corner behind the Greyhound net and put home the insurance marker with 13 seconds left in the game.
Levin got a big round of applause from the crowd and finished with a goal and two helpers.
Jake McGrath played very well stopping 31 of 33 shots for his second win of the season.
“That was a big game by Jake, he made some big saves at key moments and you know what he won us the hockey game tonight with the saves he was making,” said Stillman.
McGrath said he was seeing the puck very well and felt good in the net but was more pleased with the team's direction.
“Obviously it’s Northern rivals and the Soo is a pretty solid team but I just think everyone’s on the same page and you know everyone’s really implementing the systems Cory’s teaching us and I think we’re heading in the right direction,” said McGrath.
The Wolves continue their tough stretch with home games against Sarnia and Kingston this weekend.
‘It’s very positive, feeling good going into Friday, we’ve got to play even better against Sarnia they’re 9-1 right now. Just got to take the positives from this game and keep going,” said Blake Murray.
After the game Saturday night the Wolves will have played six games in nine days.
The win moves them to 3-6-2 on the season, but it was their second straight home victory.
