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Sudbury outlasts Flint in back and forth affair

Heading across the border brought a tough battle for the Sudbury Wolves as the Pack needed overtime to take down the Flint Firebirds 5-4.
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The Sudbury Wolves play their final home double-header this weekend when the Peterborough Petes visit on Friday night, followed by the Mississauga Steelheads on Sunday. File photo
Heading across the border brought a tough battle for the Sudbury Wolves as the Pack needed overtime to take down the Flint Firebirds 5-4.

It was a rebound performance for the Wolves who lost 6-1 the night before in Windsor and they also snapped a three game losing streak.

However Head Coach David Matsos was not satisfied when it was all over.

“I honestly believe we deserved to win the game by a large margin when we played in Sudbury against Flint, (Alex) Nedeljkovic was outstanding, we outshot them 2:1, and I thought they deserved the points tonight but we got them.”

I thought we were average in every category, maybe the above average would be that we scored five goals, that’s the only area. I didn’t think our d-zone coverages were great, I didn’t think our physical play was great, nothing was terrible, but we didn’t excel anywhere. For a team that struggles to get wins, we have to be better,” said Matsos.

For Matsos it’s not a negative on the team, it’s just how his expectations are.

“My expectations are high for these guys, I think our record doesn’t reflect how well we’ve played for periods of time. They play in a good league, they deserve to be in a good league, my expectations are high,” said Matsos.

A positive was the Wolves’ start, scoring two goals in the first period one from Michael Pezzetta, his fifth, with an assist going to Macauley Carson and from Dmitry Sokolov, his 18th, from Ryan Valentini.

At the 7:24 mark of the second Sudbury made it 3-0 as Alan Lyszczarczyk fired his 12th of the year with the assist going to David Levin.

But Matsos thought the start may have got to his teams head.

“I was really happy with it, but I think that sort of swayed our thoughts. We thought maybe this would be an offensive blowout night, when that mindset kicks in with any team in any league, you’re in trouble,” said Matsos.

That’s because back came Flint with back to back goals making the score 3-2.

Brady Pataki capped off the second period with his fourth of the season pushing Sudbury’s lead back up to 4-2.

For the seventh straight night Sudbury was held off the score sheet in the third period.

Flint scored twice including a goal with just over two and a half minutes remaining to tie the game at 4-4.

It was off to three on three overtime where Mikkel Aagaard scored his 16th on the season with 51 seconds left to give Sudbury the 5-4 win.

Playing back to back flame related teams, Thursday playing the Spitfires and then tonight the Firebirds, heat was to be expected.

And that came in the form of shots as Zack Bowman got the nod against his former team and stopped 51 of 55 shots in his first start since Jan. 20.

“He ended up battling hard tonight. A lot of the shots came from the outside for sure, but when we needed him he made some big saves for us tonight,” said Matsos.

In comparison Brent Moran for Flint stopped 21 of 26.

The Wolves are off to Saginaw for the final game of their three game Western Conference road swing.

Their next home game is Feb. 12.


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