Coming off an overtime loss on Thursday, December 16th in Windsor to the Spitfires, the third place (14-9-2) Soo Greyhounds took to the ice for their final appearance of 2021 when they meet the seventh place (12-12) Kitchener Rangers in Kitchener for a western conference contest. The Greyhounds sit six points ahead of Rangers heading into Friday’s matchup at the Aud.
At 5:50 of the opening period, Greyhound Tye Kartye picks ups a unsuccessful Ranger cross ice pass all alone in front of Kitchener goaltender Pavel Cajan’s net to give the Soo a 1 – 0 lead. Rory Kerins and Cole MacKay drew the assists on Kartye’s 23rd of the season. With a scrum in front of Kitchener’s net, Jordan D’Intino slides the visitors second through Pavel’s five hole to bring the lead to 2 – 0. Bryce McConell Barker and Kirill Kudryavtsev had the helpers on D’Intino’s third of the season. With a pass from the left faceoff circle, Roman Schmidt finds the back Greyhound netminder Tucker Tynan’s net under the Soo netminder’s catcher to pull the hosts within one at 7:14 of the second. Mike Petizian and Ty Hollett setup the Rangers first of the game. Through traffic and a wrap around pass and unassisted, Kudryavstev picks a loose puck to slide his second of the season on the go-ahead goal under Cajan’s left pad to give the Greyhounds a 3 – 1 lead at 10:32.
Arber Xheja closes the gap to one for Kitchener at 14:45 with a snapshot through Tynan’s five hole at 14:45 of the middle stanza. Petizian and Declan McDonnell had the assists on Xheja’s fifth of the season. Xheja fires a snapshot from inside the blueline to be tipped by Ranger Reid Valade into the Soo’s net to even the game 3 – 3 at 17:39. Petizian had the other contributor on Valade’s tying goal. At 4:44 of overtime from the left faceoff circle, Kerins scores his 14th of the season with overtime game winner with Kartye notching the lone assist on Kerins’ game winner. Kitchener goaltender Pavel Cajan turned away 34 of 38 shots while Greyhound netminder Tucker Tynan stopped 39 of 42 shots in the Soo’s 4 – 3 win in Kitchener.
The Greyhounds will now wait to after the 2021 Christmas break to meet the Sudbury Wolves on December 29th in Sault Ste Marie for a 7:07 p.m start.
