Beating Finnish Goaltender Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen has proven to be a tough task for most of the Ontario Hockey League this season. The Sudbury Wolves starting netminder came into Wednesday's game against the North Bay Battalion, sporting a league-best 2.39 Goals Against Average and 0.922 Save Percentage through 38 games.
He’d also previously shutout the Troops in their last two encounters. So when the Battalion was able to beat him twice in the opening 20 minutes in Sudbury, it seemed as if they had maybe found a hole in the game of the Buffalo Sabres draft pick.
But Luukkonen, and the Wolves as a whole for that matter responded over the next 40 minutes, en route to an eventual 5-2 win, their fifth in seven games against the Battalion this season.
For the Troops it was a start that Assistant Coach Adam Denis says he really liked out of his group, “I thought we gave a pretty good effort, I thought we came out strong.
“Those are the kind of efforts you’re going to have to put in if you want to beat a team like that. Unfortunately, we came out on the wrong end.”
Off the drop of the puck, the Battalion put the pressure on the Wolves defense, setting up good looks and getting the puck on Luukkonen consistently.
But the Wolves struck first at 13:57 when Isaak Phillips (2) broke the scoreless tie.
It didn’t deter North Bay, as less than a minute later, Brad Chenier (24) added another goal to his impressive season, tying the game at 1-1 at 14:25. He took a stretch pass from the blue line, got through the defense and set himself up all alone on Luukkonen.
The Sudbury goaltender went down early and Chenier roofed the puck to score on Luukkonen, the first Battalion player to get the puck past him in a game since November 16th (although Luukkonen was not in net for either of the meetings in December and both shutouts came last month).
Two minutes later it was déjà vu for North Bay, but playing the part of Chenier was Brandon Coe, getting a feed, beating the defense and getting Luukkonen to bite early while sending the puck up high.
Both the Coe and Chenier goals are must-see plays, and some of the flashier goals either guy has scored this season.
It was Coe’s 12th of the year at 16:15 and it gave the Troops a 2-1 lead, heading into the second period.
However, it was the Sudbury Wolves making the most of their chances in the second.
Phillips scored his second of the game just 1:45 in. That was followed by Macauley Carson (11) giving the Wolves a 3-2 lead at 11:58 and Adam Ruzicka (21) putting them up 4-2 at 14:31.
“It’s something that we need to continue on a regular basis,” said Dennis indicating the good start in the first period.
“There’s been some games where we haven’t had the starts and we came on later in the game. I felt tonight we came out ready to play, and that’s what is important for our team.”
This also felt like a game featuring two rival teams.
Halfway through the first period, Mason Primeau dropped the gloves with Drake Pilon and it was just one indication of what was going to be a physical game all night.
“It’s one of the hallmarks of our team,” says Dennis. “We have a big squad and we have to play physical. We have to punish other teams defense and we have to work them down that way.”
Over the course of the game, North Bay received 17 total penalty minutes while Sudbury served 15, although special teams did not play into the scoring factor of this game, with both teams going 4-4 on the penalty kill.
Sudbury got the lone goal of the third period when Shane Bulitka (16) scored at 17:33 to put the game out of reach for the Troops.
It’s the first game of what amounts to a four-game weekend. The Troops host the Soo Sault Marie Greyhounds on Thursday night at Memorial Gardens, and then welcome in the Mississauga Steelheads on Sunday afternoon.
