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 have racked up points in four straight games and, truth be told, have played very inspired hockey pretty well most every outing single the close of the OHL Trade Deadline. That said, the team hits the road this weekend, where they have recorded just four wins, in total, in 20 games.

For as much as the Wolves are ecstatic with the play of trade deadline acquisitions Genc Ula and Jean-Cristoph Lemieux, the same could certainly be said for the Peterborough Petes when it comes to the league’s second leading scorer and Sudbury draft pick, Kieron Walton. The Winnipeg Jets' prospect scored in five of his first six outings with his new team in the Lift Lock City, having a six-game point streak snapped in a loss last weekend to the London Knights.

After posting just two season series victories in the entirety of the decades that were the eighties and nineties opposite Peterborough, the lads from northern Ontario have now come out on top in the four-game set in five of the last six OHL campaigns. They have put themselves in the position to have a chance to earn at least a split, this year, posting an 8-2 win over the Petes at home this year, followed by a 5-4 loss.

Still, the team is riding a modest two game winning streak in Peterborough, just two away from the team record against the Petes. The last time Sudbury won three straight in the Lakelands was during the 2011-2012 / 2012-2013 seasons, a run that commenced with an 8-4 win on February 12th (2012) as Nathan Pancel (G+3A), Michael Sgarbossa (G+2A) and Andrey Kuchin (2G) paved the way. Interestingly enough, the bookends to that winning streak were a pair of Sudbury 4-3 defeats, both in overtime.

For as much as these the Sudbury Wolves and Kingston Frontenacs have filled the net in many of their recent head to head battles, a shootout of the other variety is highly unlikely, it would seem, when it comes to this series.

In their last seven meetings, these Eastern Conference foes have average exactly ten goals a game, combined, with a 10-6 Sudbury home-ice win last January in the very last tilt clearly pushing that number higher. At the other end of the spectrum, the Pack /Fronts storyline features just on game decided in the period five penalty shot session over the course of 173 games.

On March 17th (2006), the Wolves scored three third period goals - two from Anton Hedman - forcing overtime in Kingston before Benoit Pouliot netted the only goal of the shootout, lifting Sudbury to a 4-3 win.

Akim Aliu added the remaining regulation time strike for the winners while the Frontenacs countered with tallies from Peder Skinner, Chris Stewart and Todd Griffith. After allowing three goals on 22 shots over the course of 65 minutes of play, winning netminder Kevin Beech stood tall in the shootout, turning aside all three shots that he faced.

Where there is hope that perhaps the nonsensical “6-7” phrase will fade into oblivion, such is most certainly not the case with one of the most storied head to head matchups in Sudbury Wolves team history.

The local juniors and Ottawa 67’s first fought it out back on September 29th (1972), a contest in which the visitors from the nation’s capital doubled the nickel city reps 6-3. While the late eighties and nineties saw Burgess-owned team enjoy some solid success against a franchise that is among the most storied in the league, capturing the OHL crown three times and making at least six other appearances in the championship final, recent years have not been as productive for the home of Howler.

A 4-1 win in October of 2024 ended a six-game losing streak in Ottawa as well as a six-game losing streak, overall, against the 67’s. After sweeping the home and home against the Barber Poles in 2000-2001, the Wolves have repeated that feat just once in the ensuing 25 years. Dmitry Sokolov opened an October 2017 matchup in Sudbury with a natural hat-trick as a 7-1 Wolves victory led into a December 4-3 shootout win in Ottawa, with Shane Bulitka providing the heroics.