Special teams was where the game was won and lost Friday night at the Sudbury Arena.
The Barrie Colts scored on the man advantage, two-man advantage and short handed, while the Sudbury Wolves were 0/9 on the power play.
Those three goals were all the Colts needed, they added an empty net goal to take the game 4-1.
“Our power play didn’t get it done tonight, and our penalty kill gave up a couple goals. It was a special team battle, we had opportunities to score, we didn’t score and you know what, that’s the difference of the hockey game,” said Wolves Head Coach Cory Stillman.
“Again the difference of the hockey game today was our power play,” said Stillman.
The Wolves were in the game and in fact were controlling it until the short-handed goal put Barrie up 2-1 halfway through the third period.
“We didn’t come in the third period to play. We go back and look at it, now, put it on us, put it on the coaching staff of we’ve got to be better in those situations, but this is three nights in a row, we’re in a hockey game with a lead or tied and we take a penalty,” said Stillman.
With the loss the Wolves have now dropped four straight games to start the season, picking up just one point in an overtime loss to North Bay.
“Just focusing on the 60 minutes is big, you can’t really think about losing or else that will be in you’re head the whole game and that may be the outcome. We just got to focus and we’re going into every game thinking we’re going to win and we have that mentality so, we’re going to just keep going and it’s going to happen soon enough,” said Owen Gilhula.
Gilhula picked up his first goal of the season, just as a Wolves power play expired, the lone marker for the Wolves.
He gets to erase the zero in his stat line but there are a few Wolves still without a goal, and Stillman wants them to be patient because it will come.
“We had some looks and early we had some very good chances and that’s the thing you want to stick with it, you want to continue to go and then you start squeezing your stick. Who’s kidding who, we have some guys who haven’t scored that want to score. At times they’ve been playing very well away from the puck and making plays. When you get back in you want to shoot and you want to score and you want to do some things like that, it changes our game as a team,” said Stillman
Gilhula said the message in the room after the game was one of unity, not of negativity.
“The coaches came in and they just want us to stay together, I mean we’re a family here so we just got to stay together. There’s always going to be a bump in the road but we’re going to overcome it here and we’re going to be alright,” said Gilhula.
Sudbury outshot Barrie for two periods and held the lead 1-0 for 13 minutes of the second period until Lucas Chiodo slid a shot underneath the pad of Jake McGrath to tie the game up.
Both teams had their shots in the third period and with the Wolves on the power play, a turnover behind Sudbury’s net allowed Zachary Magwood to centre a pass to Jason Willms who made the game 2-1.
That seemed to completely deflate Sudbury, from that point on Barrie outshot Sudbury 13-3, with Jason Willms putting number two on the night past McGrath and Kade Landry adding the empty net goal.
McGrath ended up stopping 30 of 33 shots for a nice rebound game, while Leo Lazarev picked up the win on 25/26 saves.
The road doesn’t get any easier for Sudbury as Sault Ste. Marie comes to town on Sunday.
While the Wolves handled their northern rival in exhibition, the Greyhounds will have their full offensive arsenal.
