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Despite loss, Wolves played their best in months last night

Dave Matsos asked his team for a solid 60-minute effort Thursday night against the Barrie Colts, and the Wolves head coach got it and then some.
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Sudbury Wolves Head Coach David Matsos said the team played a disciplined game in a 6-3 win against the Saginaw Spirit Saturday night. File photo.
Dave Matsos asked his team for a solid 60-minute effort Thursday night against the Barrie Colts, and the Wolves head coach got it and then some.

Still, the effort wasn't enough as the Colts recorded a 4-1 win to extend the Wolves’ losing streak to eight games.

Matsos says he can't ask his guys to work much harder.

"I thought everyone played a part tonight,” Matsos said. “They (Colts) loaded up two lines and I think we responded very well.

"I asked for a clean first 10 minutes of the game and we were disiplined and we got through the first 20 minutes with only five shots against and we could have been up 3-0 but we come out 1-1."

He added it was one of the team’s better games since he took over as head coach.

"Eventually, if we keep working this hard, the tide has to turn at some point,” Matsos said.

The Wolves got off to a good start and grabbed a 1-0 lead at 13:24 of the first period as Chad Heffernan converted a pretty three-way passing play with Jacob Harris and Pavel Jenys.

The Pack got a bad break while on the power play late in the period when a pass in front of the Sudbury net bounced off the stick of Wolves forward Dmitry Sokolov and past goaltender Zack Bowman to give Barrie a short-handed goal.

The Colts scored the only goal of the second period and then added a power play goal and empty nettter to round out the scoring.

Wolves forward Chad Heffernan said they worked hard and deserved a better fate.

"It's a game of bounces for us right now and we worked hard, a complete three-period game" said Heffernan.

"If we can ride the momentum off this game into tomorrow night (Nov. 19) against Peterborough and play like this game in and game out, we should be on the right side of most games."

The Wolves out shot Barrie 31-30.

Wolves goalie Zack Bowman stopped 27 of the 30 shots he faced while the Colts’ Mackenzie Blackwood stopped 30 of the 31 shots fired his way.

The Wolves were 0-4 on the power play while the Colts were 1-3.

The Wolves begin a four game home stand Friday agaist the Peterborough Petes. Game time is 7 p.m.

The Kingston Frontenacs are in Sudbury on Sunday aftetnoon for a 2 p.m. faceoff.

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