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Wolves fall 3-2 in tight contest against Sagninaw

It was another close, but no win kind of game for the Sudbury Wolves Friday night against the visiting Saginaw Spirit.
It was another close, but no win kind of game for the Sudbury Wolves Friday night against the visiting Saginaw Spirit. The Wolves fell 3-2 in a tight contest that featured plenty of fireworks for two teams that only face one another twice in the regular season.

In the end, it was a former Wolves player, Devon Paliani, who sunk the final dagger, scoring the game-winning goal with less than nine minutes to play in the third period.

The Wolves, for the most part, out-skated, out-shot and out-hustled in the game, but fate saw it necessary to slap the Wolves with their 13th loss in as many games. Sudbury out-shot Saginaw 46-26 overall, including 26-8 in the second period, but couldn’t put all the pieces together in the end to earn a victory.

The Wolves feel they are close to tipping the scales in their favour and finally earning their eighth win of the season. They are disappointed, but not rejected and still committed to being successful.

“We battled hard and we need to see that every night,” forward Danny Desrochers said. “In the third, we sort of backed off a bit. We weren’t pressing as hard as we should have been I think. Overall, I think if we bring that effort every night and keep going and tighten up our game, we will be successful. We have to try and keep playing hard like that, and the wins are going to come. We just can’t get down on ourselves. It’s definitely frustrating. You have to keep going. It is how it is. We have to just keep pressing.”

It wasn’t exactly a glamourous start for the Wolves, as they got caught running around early and paid for it when Tye Felhaber scored on Saginaw’s first shot of the game at 4:03 of the first period. Moments later, Desrochers dropped the gloves and went toe-to-toe with Saginaw’s Connor Brown at centre ice in an attempt to fire up the home side.

Desrochers would end up with the Gordie Howe hat trick as he registered a fight, a goal and an assist in the game.

Sudbury settled down quickly and brought their “A” game for the rest of the match, and dialled up the intensity in the second period. The Wolves put forth a furious pace for the first 15 minutes of the middle period and put the Spirit on their heels. Sudbury got back into the game when Desrochers tipped in his 11th goal of the season at 9:51 to make it 1-1. Saginaw was able to regain the lead before the period ran out when Jacob Ringuette scored a power play goal at 16:01.

In the third period, the teams exchanged goals and quite a few face washes as tempers flared up and emotions started to boil. Matt Schmalz banged in a goal from the side of the crease to tie the game at 2-2 just a little over four minutes into the final period. Paliani, who was traded away to Saginaw in October for a 12th round draft pick, tallied the final goal of the game. Paliani played five games for the Wolves. In 36 games with the Spirit, Paliani has six goals and 15 points.

Despite the loss, it was a game of many “positives” to build off from interim head coach Dave Matsos’ perspective. Matsos really liked the way the Wolves simplified their game overall.

“I thought the guys deserved a better fate for sure,” Matsos said. “We really paid attention to detail in our own end. After 40 minutes of play, we gave up seven, maybe six, scoring chances in the dangerous areas. Everything was coming from the outside.”

Matsos and assistant coach Bryan Verreault have been preaching to the players about the good that comes out being a better defensive unit, especially in their own zone.

“If you play a better defensive style, it’s going to reward you at the other end,” Matsos said, alluding to the number of shots the Wolves generated from being dedicated to defence. “We’re going to continue to build on those positives until the results start going our way.”

Sudbury finishes up the weekend with a road trip to take on the North Bay Battalion on Sunday. Game time is 1 p.m.

Game notes


The three stars of the game were: David Ovsjannikov (first), Jeff Corbett (second) and Danny Desrochers (third).
Sudbury scratched Trenton Bourque and Chad Heffernen.
Saginaw scratched Troy Henley and Jack Webb.

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