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.
This year marked the first time since the 2023-2024 campaign and only the third time in the past 17 years that the Wolves prevailed in both their first game at home – as well as their first game on the road. Three years ago, the nickel city lads bounced Brantford 6-2 in Sudbury and followed that up with a 4-0 win in Peterborough less than a week later.
Ironically, that was the first ever shutout in a road opener for the local juniors – but with the 6-0 win over the Barrie Colts last Saturday night, the Wolves have now turned the trick twice in a four year span.
The game also equalled the mark for the largest margin of victory in a road opener. On September 26th (2009), no less than seven different players found the back of the net for the visitors from northern Ontario who took it to the Belleville Bulls by a final count of 7-1. Some names from the past who hit the scoresheet that night included: Marcus Foligno, Eric O’Dell, Kain Allicock, Kyle Tarini, John McFarland, Daniel Lombardi and Jared Staal.
Oh – and for the record, given that some folks have already asked: the longest Sudbury Wolves winning streak to begin any single season is a very modest four game run that was cobbled together back in 1994-1995.
In 2019-2020, the Wolves bested the Colts eight consecutive times, with only two of those games requiring overtime. In fairness, Barrie nearly returned the favour three years later (2022-2023), picking up the “W” on seven of the eight times the teams would meet – and beaten in overtime in game number eight.
If nothing else, coach Scott Barney and company would be thrilled to reverse the more recent trend, with Barrie having taken each of the past two season series’ – going 5-3-0-0 last year and the year before as well.
The 6-0 win not only equalled the largest margin of victory in any Wolves game played in Barrie (Sudbury beat the Colts 8-2 on November 16/2017 – Dmitry Sokolov and Blake Murray had two goals each for the winners), this was also the fourth time that the Wolves have blanked the Colts on the road.
Goaltenders of record in those remaining three games included Mike Smith (Feb 9th – 2002 – Josh Legge scored only goal in a 1-0 win), Zack Bowman (Oct 6th – 2016 – also a 1-0 win with GWG by Macauley Carson) and Christian Purboo (Jan 9th – 2020 – a 4-0 win in which Macauley Carson also scored the game-winning goal).
The Wolves have taken four of six in each of the last two winters, though no less than five of those eight victories needed either overtime or a shootout to settle matters. The contest on Sunday marks the first Brampton / Mississauga visit to Sudbury since 2015 – a game that also needed a shootout to decide.
Dmitry Sokolov was the only one of the six shooters to find the back of the net in the post-game skills competition as Sudbury netminder Troy Timpano was a perfect three for three against a troika that included both Michael MacLeod and Alex Nylander. The snipe by Sokolov lifted the Wolves to a 5-4 win as Michael Pezzetta enjoyed a two-goal performance for the hometown winners.
