SAULT STE. MARIE - In what’s likely the most important game of the Ontario Hockey League season to this point, Soo Greyhounds defenceman Chase Reid scored one of his biggest goals.
The rookie blueliner had the overtime winner as the Greyhounds picked up an important victory, 4-3 over the Guelph Storm Friday at the GFL Memorial Gardens in a game between two teams looking to get into the playoffs.
Guelph blew a 3-1 lead.
“I picked the corner pretty well, so it was pretty cool,” Reid said of his game winner.
The rookie blueliner called the goal one of the biggest of his life.
“We celebrated on that bench,” Greyhounds coach John Dean said. “We had players hugging coaches, coaches hugging coaches. The team has worked exceptionally hard and deserves to be rewarded. There was a sense of relief.”
Storm coach Cory Stillman called the overtime setback “a tough way to lose.”
“It had a playoff atmosphere,” Stillman added. “We turned some pucks over, we took a penalty and they scored on it and that’s how it comes out.”
Asked about his team’s performance in the game, Stillman said the team is “getting better every night.”
“We have some spurts where we don’t play very well and tonight it was in the third period,” Stillman added. “Lately it’s been in the first period where we’ve been giving teams leads.”
Dean also said he feels as though the Greyhounds have shown that resiliency is part of the repertoire of the team.
“We’ve done that quite often over the last 10 to 15 games and unfortunately we haven’t ended up on the right side of it, despite being able to crawl back into hockey games,” Deam said. “I’m super proud of the guys for how resilient they are."
After an opening period he said he wasn’t happy with, Dean said the Greyhounds came out with more grit in the second period and had more offensive zone time, but were perimeter in their play.
“The third period, we worked harder to get to the inside,” Dean said. “We worked harder at just simplifying our game, getting to the blue paint, getting pucks there and obviously it pays dividends.”
Dean added that special teams were “huge” for the Greyhounds as well in the third.
Guelph got on the board first as Jake Karabela beat Landon Miller on a wraparound to the glove side after a defensive zone turnover by the Greyhounds at 19:28 of the opening period.
The Greyhounds tied the game at one 2:38 into the third period as Marco Mignosa deflected a shot from the right point by Chase Reid past Colin Ellsworth.
Guelph took a 2-1 lead when the Storm capitalized on a power play. At the edge of the crease, Charlie Paquette redirected a pass from Lev Katzin on the left wing past Miller at 9:11.
The Storm added to the lead as Alex McLean skated into the slot and his shot beat Miller after deflecting off a stick in the slot at 10:08 to make it a 3-1 game.
With the Greyhounds on the power play, Brady T. Smith made it a one-goal game with 6:06 to go as he went to the net and redirected a pass from Christopher Brown past Ellsworth to make the score 3-2.
With 84 seconds to go in regulation time, a point shot by Reid hit Travis Hayes in close and the loose puck ended up beating Ellsworth of the skate of the Greyhounds forward to force overtime and set the stage for Reid’s heroics.
In the overtime frame, Reid got the puck from Brady Martin, began to step in and proceeded to beat Ellsworth high stick side off the crossbar with 2:15 to go to give the Greyhounds the win.
Asked about the winner, Reid said he knew he was going to get the puck from Martin.
“Their guy didn’t pressure me very hard, and I just ripped it,” Reid said. “He tried to get in the lane, but I picked the corner, and he couldn’t get the line.”
Miller stopped 32 shots in the game for the Greyhounds.
At the other end, Ellsworth stopped 30 shots for the Storm.
“He’s been put in a tough spot,” Stillman said of the rookie goaltender. “He’s a 16-year-old kid and we’re in a push.”
“He’s played more games probably in the past three weeks than he did at the start of the year,” Stillman added. “He’s played extremely well.”
Reid and Mignosa had a goal and two assists each for the Greyhounds while Hayes added a goal and an assist offensively.
Max Namestnikov assisted on a pair of goals for Guelph.
The Storm travels to Saginaw to take on the Spirit on Saturday night.
The Greyhounds improve to 22-32-1-1 with the win and sit eighth in the conference with 46 points. The team is three points behind the Flint Firebirds and Sarnia Sting, who hold down sixth and seventh respectively.
Sarnia picked up an overtime win against the Windsor Spitfires on Friday night while the Firebirds fell to the North Bay Battalion.
Guelph falls to 17-28-5-3 with the loss and sit four points behind the Greyhounds for the final playoff spot in the conference, though the team has three games in hand.
Owen Sound, who lost in Sudbury on Friday night, are also in the mix, trailing the Greyhounds by a point in the standing after Friday’s results.