One more game to go.

That might well be emblazoned across the white board when the Sudbury Wolves reconvene early this week at the Old Barn on Elgin Street.

After putting together very solid performances in a good majority of their thirty encounters to date this year, the Wolves have stumbled somewhat this past week as the holiday season nears.

The locals spotted the Soo a 3-0 lead and never really threatened last Wednesday in the Lock City. And while Friday produced a 5-4 overtime win over a depleted Brampton Steelheads side, there was another lack of crispness and sharpness to their game at home on Sunday, resulting in a 6-3 loss to the Niagara Ice Dogs.

No, it definitely wasn’t all bad – and yes, there are going to be those games to forget over the course of a 68 game schedule – but the fact is that Scott Barney and company have done an awfully good job of following up a clunker with a really solid 60-minute performance in their next outing – until this week.

It didn’t help matters that the Ice Dogs have strung together four wins in a row coming into this matchup and that they had piled up no less than 15 goals in beating both the North Bay Battalion and Soo Greyhounds this weekend before taking on the Wolves.

“They’ve got a good streak going and they’ve good some good hockey players over there, some high end talent,” noted coach Barney, his team once again playing from behind, down 2-0 after the first and 4-2 after the second.

“You can’t give up those easy goals to them. You give up pucks in the slot, good players will find a way to put it in the net.”

On Sunday, it was the likes of Ethan Czata (with a hat trick), captain Kevin He (his 23rd), Ryan Rooebroek (2nd overall pick in 2023 – his 24th) and Blake Arrowsmith (goal - two assists) who did the bulk of the damage, as well as goaltender Owen Flores with a 35-save performance.

“Their goalie made some big saves at crucial times,” noted Barney.

At times, the Wolves looked ready to storm back.

Kocha Delic narrowed the margin to 2-1 on the power-play, Luca Blonda made it 4-2 late in the second and Delic again pulled Sudbury to within two (5-3) with more than five minutes to play.

But on the balance, this was not a game that the Wolves necessarily deserved to win.

“You have to move on and learn from it,” said local Wolves forward Alex Pharand, extending his current point steak to ten games with an assist on the final Delic marker. “We did a lot of good things and a lot of bad things. We need to take the positives away and keep working on those things that we were not doing well.”

Coach Barney is not the least bit oblivious to the fact that his team will not have their A+ game every night – nor does he ignore the time of year that can present a distraction. Still, in a playoff race that sees his team just seven points clear of the ninth placed team (North Bay) but also just three points away from securing home ice advantage in the first round of the playoffs, it’s his job to try and not allow any points to slip away needlessly.

“There guys are 16 to 20 years old and a lot of them are excited to see their families soon – and they should be,” said Barney. “It’s our job to try and keep them focused to the task at hand.”

“Some times you’ve got it, some times you don’t. When you do have that energy, you have to have all five guys on board; you can’t have three. You need all five and at times, we didn’t have all five.”

With only three minor penalties called in the first, the contest became increasingly chippy – or at very least, more penalty-filled, with the pace of play slowed to a grind at times in the final forty minutes. Difficult to get the hometown fans engaged when it gets to that point.

“We’ve been taking a lot of dumb penalties and we can’t afford to do that,” said Pharand. “Teams have good power plays that we have to respect. Guys have to keep their cool – play with an edge but not taking those stupid penalties that cost us games.”

As for his own production in a season that has seen him climb in ten game increments from eight points (first 10 games) to 11 points (next ten) and now 13 in his last eight, Pharand goes beyond just the confidence factor in his game.

“For me, personally, when I am happy, I am playing my best hockey; when I am positive and in good spirits,” he suggested. “If I can get pucks into Wally (Kieron Walton) and Delly’s (Kocha Delic) hands, they can do some pretty special things with it.”

The last three games have not seen the Wolves at their finest – but with 36 points in 30 games, the team has turned some heads this year. “Some people kind of counted us out from the start, but we always believed in ourselves that we can be the team that we are,” said Pharand.

“But we can’t be satisfied. The first half was good, but we have to clean a lot of things up if we want to make a run in April and May.”

And that means getting back to work for their one remaining pre-Christmas encounter this coming Friday against the North Bay Battalion.