It was a rare Sudbury Saturday Night in the Nickel City as the Saginaw Spirit flew into town to take on the struggling Sudbury Wolves.
All of the goals in the game came in the third period, with Sudbury staging a late game comeback to take a 2-1 victory and snap a seven game losing streak, improving their record to five wins, fourteen regulation losses, and one overtime loss on the season.
Stepan Shurygin was the starting goaltender for the Saginaw Spirit while Owen Leonard got the start between the pipes for the Sudbury Wolves.
Despite both teams getting plenty of scoring chances in the opening period, and the Wolves outshooting the Spirit by a 15-10 margin, both goalies turned away every shot from the opposition team, ending the first period in a scoreless tie, including Owen Leonard showcasing a quick glove hand on a Saginaw shot with just over seven minutes remaining in the first period.
The story in the second period was very much the same, with Sudbury coming up with 12 shots while holding Saginaw to just six shots of theirown, but once again, both goalies stood tall in the net, still keeping the game at a 0-0 tie with one period left to play in the hockey game.
Just over halfway through the third period, and with Hudson Martin for the Wolves serving a two minute minor penalty for Hooking, the Saginaw Spirit finally broke the scoreless draw, with Sebastien Gervais’ fourth goal of the season with a slap shot to the right of Leonard, this one on the power play, assisted by Dimian Zhilkin and Egor Barabanov,giving the Saginaw a 1-0 lead.
At the 16:27 mark of the third, Carson Harmer for the Spirit took a minor penalty for Hooking, which lead to the game tying goal, scored with 1:34 remaining in the game by Hudson Chitaroni with a quick one timer, with the assists going to Kieron Walton and Nathan Villeneuve, tying the score 1-1.
With less than half a minute left in the game and seconds away from overtime, Chase Coughlan broke the hearts of the Saginaw Spirit and scored his seventh goal of the season after stealing the puck away from a Saginaw Spirit forward, to propel the Sudbury Wolves to an exciting 2-1 victory over the Saginaw Spirit.
The Sudbury Wolves look to keep the momentum going with a game on Wednesday, November 19 th at the Sudbury Community Arena against division rivals the Barrie Colts with puck drop scheduled for 7:05 p.m.