With a young blueline and some solid goaltending, the Peterborough Petes took advantage of a late-game opportunity and turned it into two points.
The Petes scored a power play goal in the final minutes of regulation time and Matthew Soto scored the overtime winner as the Petes skated to a 4-3 Ontario Hockey League win over the Soo Greyhounds Friday night at the GFL Memorial Gardens.
It was a night in which the Greyhounds struggled out of the gate and couldn’t close things out with a late lead.
Greyhounds coach John Dean called the opening period in the setback disappointing.
“I didn’t like the first 20 minutes,” Dean said. “That was disappointing. We showed a lot of what we’ve been showing over the last three or four games, inconsistent, kind of half-baked on our assignments. You’re there, but you’re not there.”
Dean said the term half-baked meant it’s “when you’re involved in a play, you’re kind of in the right spot, but you’re only there in body, not in spirit.”
“Really great response in the second, good response in the third, a tough stick penalty at the end, for sure,” Dean also said in describing the game. “I saw a ton of good things in the last 40 minutes.”
Dean agreed he wasn’t pleased with losing the lead in the third period.
Following Wednesday’s loss against the Erie Otters, Dean spoke of not wanting his team to use the return of Brady Martin as a crutch to play the way the team hopes to play on a consistent basis. Asked if the opening period of Friday’s game was an issue of players using Martin to get things done, Dean agreed that was part of the problem.
“We’ve been trying to push our guys to another level of compete and we can show video until we’re blue in the face, but until you have someone really modelling what that’s supposed to look like, you don’t see a ton of results,” Dean said. “Marty modeled it today and guys watched him model it for 20 minutes and then we get to have a little assessment between periods and guys could see it. They could see the difference in level of compete.”
Peterborough coach Rob Wilson was impressed with his team in the win, specifically the young players on the Petes roster.
“We didn’t have a defenceman tonight over 18 years old. We put a 16-year-old on a power play on the point and he was great,” Wilson said. “We said to the D, ‘you’re going to be challenged tonight.’ I have to take my hat off to these kids because they played a great game for us.”
Wilson said the Petes “talked about being underneath them all night and not allowing them some gifts because they’re so gifted.”
“They did a great job,” Wilson added. “Between Easton (Rye) and our D, that was a really good performance.”
Peterborough opened the scoring as Adam Novotny scored on a rebound in close after Greyhounds goaltender Noah Tegelaar stopped Carson Campbell initially on the play at 15:50 of the opening period.
The Greyhounds tied the game at 6:30 of the second period when a shot from the left point by Christpoher Brown deflected off Spencer Evans in the slot and past Peterborough goaltender Easton Rye.
Peterborough made it a 2-1 game at 8:22 after Braydon McCallum scored on a rebound after Brennan Faulkner’s initial shot on the play was stopped by Tegelaar.
Brown tied the game for the Greyhounds at 15:45 of the second period as he scored on a rebound after Brady Martin’s initial shot from the left circle was stopped by Rye.
The home side took a 3-2 lead in the third period when Tobias Zvolensky skated into the left faceoff circle after taking a pass and proceeded to beat Rye short side at 7:14.
While on the power play late, the Petes tied the game as Aiden Young cut in from the right faceoff circle and beat Tegelaar stick side with 2:13 to go in regulation time and set the stage for Soto’s overtime winner.
Soto proceeded to score the overtime winner as he skated down the left wing in open ice and beat Tegelaar with a shot high glove side 84 seconds into the extra frame.
Tegelaar made 26 saves for the Greyhounds in the loss.
Offensively, Brown had a goal and an assist for the Sault.
Novotny had a goal and an assist to pace the Petes offensively in the game while Rye stopped 27 shots.
The Greyhounds now prepare for a three-game road trip that opens Wednesday night in Sudbury against the Wolves and will take the team to North Bay on Thursday to play the Battalion before it wraps up Saturday night in Oshawa against the Generals.
The Greyhounds will take a record of 8-6-1-0 into the road trip.
With Friday’s win, the Petes improve to 6-5-1-1 on the season.
Late Friday afternoon, the Greyhounds announced a trade with the Oshawa Generals.
In the deal, the team sent forward Charlie Hilton and a sixth round pick in the 2028 OHL Priority Selection to Oshawa in exchange for a third round pick in 2029 and a conditional 10th round pick 2029.
Also on Friday, the team named Martin captain with Marco Mignosa, Travis Hayes, and Chase Reid named assistants.