Wolves lose 6-4 in Barrie

The effort was much improved, but the Sudbury Wolves are still looking for their second win of the season.

Saturday night in Barrie, the Wolves were stride for stride with the Colts but lost 6-4 extending their losing streak to seven games in a row.

But after three lopsided losses in a row, head coach Paul Fixter could finally find some positives from his team’s performance.

“I was real happy with the bounce back from last night” said Fixter. “Discouraged and disappointed about losing again, but as I’ve said all along we will live with that right now.

There were some very obvious mistakes by the defense core that cost us the game, but as long as we learn from it and keep progressing, we’ll be ok.”

The Wolves opened the scoring at the eight minute mark of the first period on the first OHL goal from Ivan Kashtanov, but went to the dressing room down 2-1.

Matt Schmalz opened and finished the scoring in the second period, but two Barrie goals sandwiched in between gave the Colts a 4-3 lead after two periods.

Again the Wolves started the third strong as Kyle Capobianco scored his ever OHL goal to tie the game at 4, but again Barrie rebounded and scored twice 33 second apart to ice the win.

"We talked after the game about taking the positives out of this one” said Matt Schmalz. “We have to dissect this game and take every single positive out of it and use it for two road games next week.

The two goals by Schmalz gives him the team lead with four.

“I have to thank my linemates for everything so far this year” said Schmalz. “They have been helping me a lot and my confidence has been going up, so I just have to keep it rolling”.

Despite allowing six goals against, Troy Timpano had another strong night as he faced 38 shots, many of them of the point-blank variety.

After the game many of the players went home to enjoy Thanksgiving with their families, a break Head Coach Paul Fixter says comes at the right time.

“I talked to the team after the game and I told them they have a lot to be thankful for. Yes we’re 1-7, but there are lot of players out there that would love to be sitting in that dressing room, with a chance of playing on this hockey club."

The Wolves are off until a pair of road games next weekend...Friday night in Erie and next Saturday night in St. Catherines against the Niagara Ice Dogs.