Flint Firebirds on the brink
Unable to take advantage of a pair of home games, Flint Firebirds are on the brink of elimination in their first round Ontario Hockey League playoff series with Soo Greyhounds.
Trailing the best-of-seven, Western Conference set three games to one, Flint needs to win at the Soo tonight to extend its season. Game time is 7 p.m. at the Essar Centre.
The seventh-seeded Firebirds had headed home for Games 3-4 with the series tied 1-1 but lost to the second-seeded Greyhounds by 3-1 and 5-2 scores.
Regular season games included, Flint has an 0-5 record at home against the Soo.
On the flip side, Flint has a 4-1 record in games played at the Soo this season, including a 1-1 mark in the playoffs.
Still, the odds would appear to be stacked against the Firebirds.
Not only did Flint enter the playoffs minus injured winger Luke Kirwan, who scored an impressive 14 goals in just 31 regular-season games, but the Firebirds have since been without 39-goal scorer Ryan Moore.
Moore — who finished seventh in the entire OHL with 90 regular-season points — was suspended for five games following a Game 2 incident in which he uttered a homophobic slur at a Soo player.
Without Moore in the lineup, Flint scored just three goals in the Games 3 and 4 losses at home.
On the Soo side, veteran goalie Joseph Raaymakers has come off the bench to post victories in Games 3 and 4.
Including a relief appearance in Game 2, Raaymakers has played in 138 minutes and stopped 68 of 71 shots for a .958 save percentage and 1.30 goals against average.
PHOTO: Playoff action from the Firebirds-Greyhounds opening-round series. (Photo by Ali Pearson.)