Faced with a very tough three game road swing this past weekend, the Sudbury Wolves managed to salvage an overtime win versus the division leading Flint Firebirds (6-5) squeezed between setbacks against the Saginaw Spirit (2-1) and London Knights (4-2).

Despite going 1-2 on the weekend, the Wolves still managed to stretch their lead over the 9th place Brampton Steelheads to nine points as the latter fell to both the Peterborough Petes (4-1) and the Owen Sound Attack (5-0).

With an upcoming scheduled that features matchups with the Brantford Bulldogs (Wed - Feb 25th), Kitchener Rangers (Fri - Feb 27th) and London Knights (Sat - Feb 28th), the pathway to making up ground on the nickel city lads is not an easy one for the Steelheads.

The Wolves also have a busy week ahead, albeit with all three of their outings at home as the Soo Greyhounds (Feb 25th), North Bay Battalion (Feb 27th) and Kingston Frontenacs (March 1st) all make their way to Sudbury.

The Wolves narrowly missed coming home with a better than .500 record (or .500 on the nose, at the very least), leading Saginaw 1-0 with under three minutes to play in the game.

Unfortunately, the visitors could not make a second period goal from Chase Coughlan stand as Dimian Zhilkin and Blake Barnes finally found chinks in the armour of Sudbury netminder Paolo Frasca, who finished the contest with 22 saves.

Somehow the local juniors found a way to overcome the heartbreak of that tough loss, playing an inspired first period of hockey two nights later in Flint and rewarded with a 4-0 first period lead on tallies from Adam Nemec, Chase Coughlan, Vladimir Provorov and Nemec, for a second time.

The Firebirds, however, countered with a vengeance, coming all the way back and then some as Charlie Murata, Christopher Thibodeau, Brady Smith, Jimmy Lombardi and Kevin He pushed the homeside ahead 5-4 with 6:47 to play in the third.

The tenth goal of the season for Daniel Berehowsky forced OT and when Lombardi was tagged with a high-sticking double minor on a play that required video review, Jan Chovan drilled home the game-winner on the power play.

Any momentum of the big win was lost in the opening frame Sunday in London as the Knights bolted to a 4-0 first period lead courtesy of a pair of goals from Cohen Bidgood and solo markers from William Nicholl and Braiden Clark.

Rather than fold up their tents, the Wolves managed to make a game of it, with rookie Brayden Bennett getting the team on the board in the second and Artem Gonchar narrowing the gap to 4-2 late in the third.