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.

With just one game scheduled for the Sudbury Wolves over the course of the past 12 days, coach Scott Barney and his staff have had plenty of practice time to work with a young team still trying to find their footing. Carrying an 0-5-1-0 record into play this weekend, their search for that elusive first victory of 2025-2026 is not made any easier by a schedule that sees them on the road for three more games – making it seven of their first nine outings, for those keeping track at home.

There’s little doubt that a great deal of time and effort in said practices has been spent on understanding the importance of defensive structure for the Wolves, the early evidence coming in the form of a 3-1 loss to the North Bay Battalion last Friday. That game represented the fewest goals that the locals have surrendered in any game this year – though they start their three in three stretch Friday night facing a Brantford Bulldogs team that have average almost five goals per game to date.

That said, a 7-2 home ice with for the Dogs back on September 27th, featuring two goal efforts by both Cooper Dennis and Caleb Malhotra was the most goals against for a Sudbury road game in this series since March 15th (2014). Since that time, the northern lads had gone 19 games against the Hamilton / Brantford franchise allowing six goals against less – with that highwater mark of six reached only twice.

In nine of those outings, the Wolves limited the Bulldogs to two goals or less, with their best defensive effort coming back on March 9th (2019) with a 4-0 whitewashing of the host club. Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen was stellar, making 41 saves while Peter Stratis, Ryan O’Bonsawin, Adam Ruzicka and Nolan Hutcheson supplied the offense.

In an early season stretch that sees the Sudbury Wolves seemingly facing an almost endless array of top-end contending teams, a Saturday match-up with their cellar-dwelling counterparts will surely be welcomed. Both the Wolves and the Otters find themselves in 10th place in their respective conferences with a head to head contest set for this weekend in Pennsylvania.

After winning three straight games at the Erie Insurance Arena between October 5th (2018) and February 25th (2023), the Wolves have dropped the past two battles, 4-3 in overtime (Nov 10th 2023) and 7-4 last February. For a team that is having a hard time finding the back of the net, the Woofers can look to the fact that they have never been shutout by the Erie Otters while turning the tables in that regard on three different occasions.

Their last whitewashing of their American counterparts came on December 18th (2015) when Sudbury netminder Troy Timpano posted a 30-save shutout (ironically, Timpano was traded to Erie the following year), while Mikkel Aagaard and Danny Desrochers scored to secure a 2-0 win.

Coming into the 2025-2026 season, the Sudbury Wolves have registered exactly the same number of wins at home and on the road versus the Niagara / Mississauga Ice Dogs (43) as well as the same number of points (93) over the course of a 157 game series that dates back to the 1998-1999 campaign.

In Sudbury’s second game of the year and first outing on the road, Niagara bested the visitors by a final count of 5-1, with Ryerson Edgar netting the hat trick and Chase Coughlan scoring the only goal for the Wolves. Boasting a team that many expect to contend in the East this year, the Ice Dogs (4-2-0-1) hold down top spot in the Central Division, with the Barrie Colts (3-2-0-2) just one point back.