It was a night in which both coaches had similar thoughts on what the outcome should have been.
For Soo Greyhounds coach John Dean, on Friday night, his team played “our best game we’ve played all season.”
On the other side, Guelph Storm coach Cory Stillman said the Greyhounds were better than his team in the game.
Despite that, a goal by Ethan Miedema late in the second period held up as the game winner in a 4-2 win by the Storm over the Greyhounds at the GFL Memorial Gardens.
For Dean, it was another night in which the Greyhounds struggled to finish scoring chances.
The team hit five posts in the setback while also getting turned aside multiple times shorthanded on opportunities early on the opening period.
“Our boys deserved a lot better than (the result) based on chance generation, chances against, zone time, opportunities, you name it,” Dean said.
“That’s a great hockey game for us,” Dean added. “Good offensive zone time, good job in the defensive zone. Don’t get me wrong, Guelph had a couple of pushes. They do a great job of getting pucks to the net with traffic in front of our goal, but for the most part, we controlled that game.”
Stillman’s assessment of his club was a simple one.
“We were very lucky to win tonight,” Stillman said. “They were the better team.”
“They worked, they skated, and the amount of posts they hit, it was just luck for us tonight,” Stillman added.
Stillman also called killing off a match penalty to defenceman Grant Spada in the second period “the turning point.”
“Our power play’s been horrendous and our PK was really good in that five-minute kill,” Stillman said. “In my eyes, that’s the hockey game. We came right back and score right after it. We caught a break and then we had to hang on.”
Dean agreed that the major penalty was an opportunity for the Greyhounds.
“It was an opportunity for us to pounce,” Dean said. “I liked our movement for the most part, but we missed the net six or seven times. The power play generally, a lot of it happens on loose puck retrievals.”
“If you miss the net because you’re trying to be too perfect, it does us no good,” Dean added.
In the midst of a stretch that’s seen him make seven consecutive starts, Zachary Jovanovski stopped 28 shots for the Storm in the victory.
“He’s made a big save when we’ve needed him to make it in the last two weeks and if he continues to play like that, we've got a chance to win a lot of hockey games," Stillman said.
“He stole this game,” Stillman also said.
After giving up a slew of chances early on while on the power play, Guelph took advantage of a defensive zone turnover to open the scoring. Hunter McKenzie grabbed the turnover just inside the Sault blueline and beat Greyhounds goaltender Noah Tegelaar stick side on a breakaway at 8:53 of the opening period.
The Greyhounds tied the game early in the second period when Quinn McKenzie beat Jovanovski on a breakaway glove side at 5:48.
Guelph retook the lead at 12:26 when Noah Jenken skated into the left faceoff circle and took a pass from Christopher Soares before beating Tegelaar short side to make it a 2-1 game.
The Storm made it a 3-1 game at 17:08 when Miedema took a breakaway pass from Quinn Beauchesne and beat Tegelaar 5-hole.
The Greyhounds cut the Guelph lead to one goal in the third period when Jeremy Martin drove the net and redirected a pass from Chase Reid on the right wing past Jovanovski at 7:28
Quinn Beauchesne capped off the scoring with an empty net goal with 1:05 to go in regulation time.
Beauchesne finished the night with a goal and an assist for the Storm.
Tegelaar made 14 saves for the Greyhounds in the loss.
Both teams are slated to return to action on Saturday night. The Greyhounds will take a record of 11-8-1-0 into a game at home against the Barrie Colts while Guelph improves to 9-6-2-0 as the team wraps up a weekend road trip in Flint against the Firebirds.
For the second consecutive game in the Sault, a delay led to some referee changes for the opening period of a game involving the Greyhounds.
A flight delay led to local referee Marcus Policicchio wearing the bands and working the first period of Friday’s game with Tyson Stewart, who was already scheduled to work the game.
Corey Jackson and Josh Houselander handled the lines.
In the second period, Policicchio and Justin Herrington took over on the lines with Jesse Wilmot donning the stripes and working the game as scheduled with Stewart.
Both Wilmot and Herrington were on a flight that was delayed reaching the Sault and didn’t land until shortly before Friday’s scheduled puck drop.