Photo Eric Verbonac

After a 2 – 2 tie with the Sudbury U16 Nickel Capitals on Wednesday, March 15th at the 2022 Great North Midget League playoffs, the Soo U18 Greyhounds took to the ice on Friday, March 18th for a 10:00 a.m matchup against the (0-1) North Bay U18 Trappers in Kapuskasing, Ontario.

From the front of North Bay goaltender Kolton Bourret’s net, Daniel Guzzo slides the opening goal under the Trapper goaltender to give the Soo a 1 – 0 lead 10:19 into the first. Cole Cond and Sam Verbonac drew the assists on Guzzo’s goal. Cole Cond fires a cross ice pass to Noah Aboflan to be tipped into the Trappers net with 96 seconds remaining in the first by Greyhound Matthew Kallo. Ten seconds later from the left faceoff circle with an unassisted, the Soo’s Adrian O’Dell rifles a snapshot under Bourret’s catcher to send the Greyhounds into the first intermission up 3 – 0. All alone in front of Soo netminder Charlie Burns, Thomas Sefton finds the back of the Greyhound net for North Bay’s first 1:49 into the second period to pull the Trappers within two. Riley Wolfe and Nolan Masson setup Sefton’s goal.

39 seconds before the halfway mark of the second stanza and both teams four on four, Gabe Palumbo sets up Austin Fellinger on a Soo breakway to increase the lead to 4 – 1 for the Greyhounds. With the Soo on a powerplay, Jacob Smith catches a pass from Verbonac to fire a snapshot under Bourret’s blocker to give the Greyhounds a 5 – 1 lead with 2:41 left in the second. Greyhound Lincoln Moore slides the Soo’s sixth past Bourret 17 seconds into the third with an unassisted goal to give the 2022 GNML regular season champions a 6 – 1 lead. Moore and Carmine Perna setup the Soo’s seventh of the contest with Gabe Zimbaro scoring for the Greyhounds with 2:31 remaining in the game. Keifer Spence fires a snapshot from the left faceoff circle to find the back of the Greyhounds net through Burns’ five hole for the final goal of the game with 2:07 left. Todd Violette had the lone contributor on the Trappers second goal of the game.

U18 Greyhound coach Jamie Henderson told Saultsports that Our guys played well this morning it was nice to see them rewarded with some goals. We just want to keep building here now and we’ll have that opportunity tonight to clean up some areas of our game we can improve on.”

The Greyhounds will round out the GNML playoff round robin play with a March 18th matchup at 8:00 p.m against the New Liskeard Cubs in Kapuskasing.