Best of five now, with three at home
SAULT STE. MARIE — In order to get to the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds, the Hamilton Bulldogs had to get through two nightmare netminders in Stephen Dhillon and Jeremy Helvig.
Now, in the OHL final, they have another nightmare on their hands.
Meet Matt Villalta. He’s the backstop who helped the Hounds even the championship series with a 4-2 win at the Essar Centre Saturday night.
“Every time when he maybe doesn’t think he’s at his best, he bounces back and has an outstanding game,” said Soo coach Drew Bannister. “He made some key saves in the first period when they were pushing — and we weren’t very sharp — that kept us in that game and gave us an opportunity to get ourselves back into it in the second and third.”
Villalta had 36 stops in the win — a one-goal contest until Morgan Frost scored an empty netter in the dying seconds. That includes 17 in shots an opening frame in which he stoned Brandon Saigeon on a breakaway and robbed Riley Stillman on a chance in tight.
Echoing Bannister, Bulldogs coach John Gruden called it a bounceback performance for the Kingston native, who had some trouble tracking and controlling the puck two days earlier in Game 1.
“Like we did for the other goalies — Dhillon and Helvig — we’re going to have to get more traffic and get pucks to the net,” he added.
Despite Saturday’s loss, the Bulldogs are in a good place as the series shifts to Hamilton for Game 3 Monday. First, they host three of the next five games in the best-of-seven; and second, while the Greyhounds are a force in their own building — a deafening space where they are 10-2 in the playoffs and lost just once in regulation this season — they have struggled lately to win on the road.
The numbers do the talking. In eight post-season matchups away from home, they are 3-5 and only one of those wins was beyond the first round.
“I know our fans in the city of Hamilton are excited for Monday and that’s going to bring a lot of energy to our group,” said Gruden, whose squad has dropped just one of nine games at home since the playoffs started, including none in rounds two or three.
Stillman agreed.
“We are going home to a place we’re very good in,” he said. “We’ve been very strong at home through the playoffs and through the regular-season. You know what? Guys are ready to go.”
Bannister, meanwhile, wasn’t overly concerned with his team’s road record. Owen Sound, he said, was a real tough place to play in the semis, as was Kitchener in the conference final.
The Greyhounds struck less than five minutes after the opening faceoff Saturday, with Marian Studenic in the box for closing his hand on the puck — a call that had the Bulldogs brass up in arms. But Hamilton got even on their own power-play right before intermission — the third tally in the series for Mackenzie Entwisle, who also had the opening goal and the overtime winner for the Bulldogs in Game 1.
Halfway through the second, Hamilton found itself in penalty trouble again and the Soo regained the lead. First, it was Frost who scored and then Jack Kopacka, who beat a screened Kaden Fulcher with a rising shot from the slot to notch the game’s only five-on-five goal.
Late in the third, Brandon Saigeon made it close with another power play marker, but the Bulldogs couldn’t complete the comeback. Kaden Fulcher was solid with 30 saves in the loss.
In the aftermath, Gruden said his side was better than in its 4-3 Game 1 win.
“I actually thought we did a lot of good things,” he added. “There were actually 10 minutes in the second period, where we lost our composure a little bit and then we were able to get it back. But I like our pushback of our group.”
Stillman backed his coach’s assessment “100 per cent.”
“We had our chances and they had theirs. They just capitalized one more time than we did,” the D-man added. “We did a lot of good things tonight. We made some errors, but that’s hockey. So we’re going to continue just to work and get better and focus on the little details come Monday.”
Game 3 is 7 p.m. at FirstOntario Centre. Hamilton also hosts Game 4 Wednesday before going back to the Soo for Game 5. NOTES: The ’Hounds inserted C
Brett Jacklin on the fourth line Saturday. D Holden Wale was scratched alongside Phil Caron.
Anthony DeMeo (concussion) and Hayden Verbeek (midbody) were also out again with injuries. The Bulldogs made no lineup changes. … Bulldogs first-rounder Logan Morrison had five goals in three games in the round-robin portion of the OHL Gold Cup in Kitchener over the weekend — a tournament high. The Gold Cup is an annual showcase of 160 of the province’s top players vying for an invite to Hockey Canada’s under-17 camp.