Photo: Bob Davies (Soo Greyhounds)
Coming off a 7 – 4 loss in Flint on Wednesday, December 28th to the Firebirds, the fifth place (10-13-5-4) Soo Greyhounds returned to the ice on Thursday, December 29th to face the Spirit in Saginaw for a west division contest.
Six seconds past the halfway mark of the first, Landen Hookey catches a cross ice pass from Kalvyn Watson to fire a snapshot from the right faceoff circle over Brett Fullerton’s left shoulder to give the Soo a 1 – 0 lead. Bryce McConnell-Barker drew the other helper on Hookey’s fifth of the season. On a Soo powerplay, Jordan D’Intino slips the visitors second over Fullerton’s catcher to the right of the Saginaw net to give the Greyhounds a 2 – 0 lead at the 14:01 mark. Defenseman Andrew Gibson notched the lone contributor on D’Intino’s twelfth of the season.
Sault Ste Marie’s Calem Mangone tips Mitchell Smith’s wrist shot past Greyhound netminder Samuel Ivanov to bring out the teddy bear toss out to pull the Spirit within one at 14:44 of the first. Zayne Parekh added the other assist on Mangone’s tenth of the season for Saginaw. 3:19 into the second period, Kalvyn Watson picks up a Spirit turnover just inside the Saginaw blueline to rifle a snapshot over Fullerton’s blocker to bring the lead to 3 – 1. McConnell Barker had the helper on Watson’s 14th of the season.
With the Soo’s Landen Hookey and Saginaw’s Luke McNamara in the penalty box for roughing, Michael Misa catches a pass from Roberto Mancini in the right faceoff circle to slide the Spirit’s second goal under a sprawling Ivanov to close the gap to one at 4:35 of the final period from in front of the Greyhound’s net. Pavel Mintyukov drawing the other contributor on Misa’s goal. At 5:29 and both teams still four on four, Hunter Haight cuts across the ice left to right to fire the tying Saginaw goal over Ivanov’s right shoulder from between the faceoff circles to even the game 3 – 3 for the Spirit at 5:29. Misa and Mintyukov registering their second assists on the period for the Spirit. With 4:41 remaining in the contest in Saginaw, Theo Hill fires a shot from just inside the left blueline to be tipped by McNamara from the right faceoff circle to give the Spirit a 4 – 3 lead. Mitchell Smith added the other contributor on McNamara’s go-ahead goal.
From the faceoff circle at 16:15 of the period, Andrew Gibson fires his sixth of the season over Fullerton’s catcher to pull the Soo even 4 – 4 with D’Intino and Marco Mignosa setting up Gibson’s tying goal. Saginaw’s Pavel Mintyukov catches a cross ice pass from Michael Misa to rifle the game winner past Ivanov from right faceoff circle at 3:13 of the three-on-three overtime period. Spirit goaltender Brett Fullerton stopped 21 of 25 shots in the Saginaw overtime win while Greyhound netminder Samuel Ivanov turned away 32 of 37 shots in the Soo’s 5 – 4 loss.
The Greyhounds return home for a Sunday, December 31st afternoon matinee when they host the fourth-place central division (10-17-3) Sudbury Wolves at the Memorial Gardens in a 2:00 p.m puck drop.
