Hamilton’s Troy Smith loses Spirit
The Saginaw Spirit is on track for its best season in nearly a decade, but that’s not good enough for Dave Drinkill.
He said he expects more. Drinkill, the general manager of the Spirit, fired head coach and Hamilton native Troy Smith on Sunday because he doesn’t believe the team is moving in the right direction. Saginaw has a winning record (11-9-1-1) and finished the weekend in second place in the OHL’s West Division, six points back of the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds.
“It’s an unfortunate situation,” Drinkill said. “Our team wasn’t trending in the direction that I wanted and our expectations are high this year, and I don’t want to settle for mediocrity. I know we’re a couple of games over .500, but we do expect more.”
Smith, 40, was in his second season with Saginaw and had only recently returned from the World Under-17 Hockey Challenge, where he served as an assistant coach for Canada Black, when he got the news.
He previously spent nine campaigns with the Kitchener Rangers as an assistant coach and head coach and parts of two seasons as an associate coach with the Hamilton Bulldogs. He told The Spectator he’s thankful for the opportunity and disappointed he “didn’t get to see this group through to the end.”
A former defenceman for the Hamilton Kilty B’s, Plymouth Whalers and St. Francis Xavier University, Smith inherited the OHL’s youngest team when he was hired in August 2017. In spite of its youth, the Spirit was 40-39-10-1 under his watch and either improved or was improving on several measures.
There were, however, differences with Drinkill, who said he clashed with Smith over coaching philosophy and style of play. When pressed for specifics, Drinkill said he wants to be a “fast, puck-possessing type of team” with playmaking ability and skill.
But if style is an issue in Saginaw, it’s not the only one.
Goaltending — an area of the game by and largely out of Smith’s control — is also a problem. Despite allowing the secondfewest shots in the league (28.55), the Spirit has among the worst team goaltending numbers, including a 3.91 goals-against average and a 0.861 save percentage. Starter Ivan Prosvetov, meanwhile, has a save percentage of 0.877 and allowed four goals on 27 shots in a 5-1 loss to the Windsor Spitfires on Saturday — Smith’s final game behind the Saginaw bench.
Associate coach Chris Lazary was immediately promoted in Smith’s wake. He will be the fifth head coach of the Spirit — Greg Gilbert, Moe Mantha and Spencer Carbery round out the list — since Drinkill took over as general manager in July 2015.
Drinkill called Lazary, 36, a “good coach,” an “up-and-coming guy” and someone who is “going to make a mark on this league pretty quickly.” He also said his “philosophy lines up the exact same as mine — how we want to play, how we want to develop players on and off the ice — and I look forward to working with him.”
NOTES: The Hamilton Bulldogs dropped below the .500 mark with a 5-3 road loss to the Kingston Frontenacs on Sunday — their third in a row. Prior to this latest skid, the streaky squad won three straight on the heels of five consecutive losses. They go into Friday’s game against host Oshawa with a 10-11-1-0 record and in fourth place in the East Division. ... The streak is over at 13. Bulldogs forward Brandon Saigeon was rendered pointless for the first time since mid-October in Sunday’s loss to the Fronts. His 13-game spree, in which he amassed 12 goals and 12 assists for 24 points, ties the Grimsby native with Saginaw’s Albert
Michnac for the longest point streak in the OHL so far this season . ... Rookie defenceman
Michael Renwick beat Hamilton-born Fronts goalie Ryan
Dugas to score his first OHL goal Sunday, leaving just two skaters on the roster — Frank Jenkins and Dylan D’Agostino — who have yet to tally as Bulldogs.