Photo Eric Verbonac
After an eight hour bus ride to Kapuskasing, Ontario, the 2021 – 2022 regular season Great North Midget League champions, the Soo U18 Greyhounds hit the ice on Wednesday, March 16th against the Sudbury U16 Nickel Capitals to open the 2022 GNML playoffs.
At 5:50 of the second period, Nickel Capital Atom Thususka catches a backhand pass from Nolan Newton at the left slide of Soo netminder Charlie Burns to slide the opening goal under Burns to give Sudbury a 1 – 0 lead. Lincoln Moore rifles a snapshot from the top of the left faceoff circle past Nickel Capital goaltender Maverick Fletcher to pull the Greyhounds even 1 – 1 at the 3:59 mark of the second period. Austin Fellinger and Cole Cond drew the contributors on Moore’s tying goal. After an unsuccessful Soo clearing attempt with 3:55 left in the third, Carter Niquet spins around a Greyhound defenseman to slide the go-ahead goal for the Nickel Capitals through Burns’ five hole to give Sudbury a 2 – 1 lead. Nolan Lafrance and Tyler Thompson added the assists on Niquet’s goal. With time ticking down and the Nickel Capitals up 2 – 1 with 55 seconds remaining in the game and Burns on the Greyhound bench for an extra attacker, Gabe Zimbaro all alone to the left of Fletcher’s net to fire the tying goal into the empty side of the Nickel Capital net to tie the game 2 – 2. Austin Fellinger and Carmine Perna set up Zimbaro’s tying goal.
Greyhound coach Jamie Henderson told Saultsports that “we’ve been struggling to score of late we have been unwilling to get to the net and ultimately make life difficult for goalies. Tonight, their goalie played great and they capitalized on our breakdowns but we got a late one late to tie it.”
“We talked prior to the game about getting better every day hopefully peaking come Friday so we’ll get to work breaking this game down and see where we can improve,” said Henderson.
The Greyhounds will now take their 2 – 2 tie into game two of the playoffs on Thursday, March 17th against the New Liskeard Cubs in a 4:00 p.m start.
