Morgan Frost’s goal in the final minute of overtime was the difference as the Soo Greyhounds defeated the North Bay Battalion 5-4 in overtime Thursday night.
Frost took a backhand shot on a feed from Boris Katchouk that slipped under the pad of Julian Sime for the game-winner.
It’s the second overtime win for the Soo Greyhounds in North Bay this season.
"I sound like a broken record but we are down a couple goals and you have to give the kids a lot of credit that they battled back and got back into the game and then we had the lead 4-3 and we allow a goal with two minutes left is tough and in overtime Brazeau had a chance right off the hop and McKenzie had a two on one with Thilander that could have gone either way and then the way the overtime goal went in was quite unfortunate," explained Butler about the loss.
Greyhounds head coach Drew Bannister was critical of his group. Despite the win, he felt the way his team played, the OT victory seems more like a defeat.
"Obviously North Bay pushed us in the third and I didn’t think we were very good but a big reason for that was because of their play as they were better and playing more confident," said Bannister about the Battalion effort.
"This is a game you kind of walk away and you kind of feel like you lost, for me. I think we had an opportunity to pull away in that game, I would just like to see us have more killer instinct so that we do and we don’t put ourselves in a position where we end up chasing the game a little bit in the third and at the end of the day we get lucky coming out of here with two points," he added.
The Battalion took the play to the Greyhounds in the opening five minutes of the contest including a couple of great opportunities by Brad Chenier and Brett McKenzie.
However, the Greyhounds counter attack stuns the Troops around the eight-minute mark on a 2 on 1 as the Hounds Cole McKay shoveled home a pass from the left side underneath Riley Bruce from a Boris Katchouk feed for a 1-0 Hounds lead on their third shot of the contest.
The Hounds add to their lead on a late first-period power play as a Barrett Hayton wrist shot from the left point beat Sime upstairs with only 19 seconds left in the period as moments earlier Andy Baker was sent to the box to serve too many men on the ice infraction.
Justin Brazeau looked to bring the Troops within one around the 14-minute mark of the second period when he outmuscled at least three Greyhounds defenders driving to the net but he was unable to solve Matthew Villalta who covered the puck with Luke Burghardt digging for the puck unsuccessfully in the Hounds crease.
The Troops got some life as Julian Sime came up huge during a Greyhounds power play as he kicked out the pad to rob Barrett Hayton in the slot to keep it 2-0.
The Troops finally catch a break as Luke Burghardt intercepted a pass at the blue line and walked in, could not beat Villalta on the deke, but fed Brazeau back into the slot for his 13th of the season to make it 2-1.
That seemed to wake up the Troops as less than 20 seconds later Brett McKenzie took a shot off the half wall from a bad angle that somehow got through traffic and by the bewildered Hounds netminder to even the game at 2-2 at 19:02.
The Troops carried the momentum into the third period as on an early power play, Adam Thilander found Luke Burghardt on a backdoor pass that beat Villalta for the Troops first lead of the game at the 2:29 mark.
The Hounds didn’t give the Troops too much time with the lead as on an odd-man rush, Jack Kopacka beat Sime low on a transition play on a power play at 5:43 of the third to even things at 3-3.
Brett McKenzie nearly netted the tiebreaker around the halfway point of the period as Luke Moncada fed the veteran on a two on one but Villalta did the splits sliding cross-crease to make the remarkable save.
The Troops catch another break as Luke Moncada took a shot from a similar angle to the McKenzie goal and beat Villalta upstairs on the short side at the 15-minute mark to give the Troops a 4-3 lead.
The Hounds got the equalizer on a shot from the point by Tim Getting that went off the top of the glove of Sime and into the net for a goal Sime, who was solid most of the night, would have wanted back. The Hounds had just pulled Villalta for the extra attacker when the shot beat Sime at 17:52.
The Troops head to St. Catharines Friday night when they face the Niagara IceDogs.
