As part of my role as team statistician for the Sudbury Wolves, my job description includes the preparation of weekly media notes, featuring various tidbits of information regarding upcoming games.

While these notes have generally been confined to circulating among media types and club officials, it seemed likely that fans of the local OHL team might also have an interest in the odds and ends that I might come across on a weekly basis.

The Sudbury Wolves leave for Sault Ste Marie Wednesday morning without the familiar faces of Nathan Villeneuve and Alex Pharand on the bus. In their stead, newcomers J-C Lemieux and Adam Nemec have been welcomed to The Pack. More changes could be in the offing by the time the local juniors step on the ice Friday at home to welcome the Niagara Ice Dogs.

Welcome to trade deadline week in the OHL.

The longest Sudbury winning streak for games played in Sault Ste Marie dates back to the very first years both teams were in the league. From December 19th (1972) through to March 6th (1974), the Wolves left the Soo with a win in hand five straight times.

For as much as it’s unlikely that the 2025-2026 season will get the ball rolling on a streak that will challenge the above, the fact remains that head coach Scott Barney and company would be more than happy to duplicate their results vs the Greyhounds last year.

In order to earn an even split – both teams racked up three wins against each other in 2024-2025 – Sudbury will need to win two of the last three encounters as the Hounds bounced back from a 4-2 loss in the nickel city on October 17th to claim a 3-1 win at home the next night, thrashing the Wolves 8-2 at the end of that month in the Old Barn on Elgin Street.

For the first time in the annual head to head matchup of the Sudbury Wolves and Niagara Ice Dogs (formerly Mississauga Ice Dogs), the season series will NOT constitute six full games this year (barring Covid). The addition of a pair of matchups with the Rouyn-Noranda Huskies of the QJMHL in January came at the expense of Sudbury’s furthest divisional rivals.

Once the Ice Dogs finish their visit to Sudbury this coming Friday night, Niagara will have just one more trek to make up north (February 16th). After falling in both fall battles in St Catharines (5-1 and 4-3), the Wolves will look to extend that same courtesy to the Dogs in the comfort of their home rink.

The Wolves have won six of the last eight contests with Niagara at home, though they were beaten in two of three in Sudbury last year.

A puckdrop this Sunday at home with the Ottawa 67’s not only marks the first game between these teams this year, but the first time since the 2021-2022 season that the Eastern Conference adversaries have actually faced each other after Christmas.

The Wolves have lost four straight home encounters to Ottawa, their last victory in this regard coming back on November 19th (2021) in a season in which the teams faced each other four times (coming out of Covid). In that Friday night affair, Quentin Musty netted a pair of goals and Evan Konyen and Kocha Delic added one each as the Wolves doubled the 67’s 4-2.

Another stat of interest: no less than ten games involving these teams contested in northern Ontario have been decided in a shootout – with just half that many affairs decided in the same manner in the nation’s capital. In December of 2017, Ottawa and Sudbury would duke it out through seven rounds of a shootout before a Shane Bulitka snipe gave the Wolves the win.

And one last note on shootouts: last month, on December the 12th, specifically, Nathan Villeneuve capped off a wild 7-6 Sudbury triumph over the Sarnia Sting by scoring in the penalty shot competition. If long-standing Wolves fans were thinking that this was something they had not witnessed in some time, they were not wrong.

The 2024-2025 marked the first time dating back to at least the 2005-2006 season when the Wolves have gone through an entire 68 game regular season schedule without taking part in a shootout. In fact, the last shootout witnessed at Sudbury Arena prior to the game against Sarnia came on January 15th (2023) when the Wolves lost to the Soo Greyhounds.