Sarnia Sting celebrate a 4 - 1 win, a record set by JP Anderson and teddy bears were collected at Sunday's afternoon game against the Sault Ste Marie Greyhounds before 3,617 home town fans.
At 6:05 in the first period Daniel Nikandrov created a frenzy after he took a pass from Nicolay Goldobin and shot it low to score the first goal of the game sending 3,787 teddy bears flying from all over onto the ice in the Sarnia Sting 15th Annual Teddy Bear Toss. Just over 42,000 stuffed toys have been collected overall and donated to community charities at the Annual event.
"It was pretty funny I was in the car with Gally this morning and we were talking about who's going to get the goal and I look over and I said I'm going to score so I had a pretty good feeling about it." said Nikandrov. "It was a special goal obviously some guys talked about it before the game but I think it's important for us get that first goal against he Sault since they embarrassed us last time we were there so to come out and score on our first shift was huge."
After a brief cleanup of stuffed animals play resumed and at 8:48 the Greyhounds scored their only goal of the game with Trent Mallette scoring from Alex Gudbranson. First period ended with both sides even with 1 each. After a scoreless second period Reid Boucher took a pass from Charles Sarault and hit the top corner to score what turned out to be the winning goal at 11:50. Alex Galchenyuk gave the Sting a 3 - 1 lead after firing a quick shot. Alex Basso and Connor Murphy assisted Galchenyuk's 22nd goal of the season. The final goal of the game came at 17:01 with Davis Brown scoring his third goal in three games assisted by Bryan Moore and Anthony DeAngelo.
Sarnia outshot Sault Ste Marie 33 - 33. Sting went 1 for 3 on the power play, Greyhounds went 0 for 5.
J.P. Anderson made 29 saves out of 30 shots he faced in the win to earn him his 115th career win and a new OHL record. Anderson is currently in his fifth OHL season having previously played with the St. Michael's Majors prior to being acquired by the Sting in last year's trade deadline.
"It's unbelievable especially as a Sarnia Sting . For all the goalies to through this league and how old this league is and for him to win something like that is unbelievably and we are very proud of him." said Coach Jacques Beaulieu
Of the 115 wins he accumulated 88 with the Majors and 26 with the Sting. He broke the record of 114 held by former Sault Ste Marie Greyhounds Kyle Gajewski.
"It felt good, I just found out about it before the Windsor game and and thought that's kind of neat." said Anderson. "I knew I had a lot of wins but I didn't know what the record was. Any type of OHL record especially one like this because it's something that was earned not won in one game, one month or one season it was something that I worked at I guess you could say for five years now. It's kind of neat to have those career achievements."
Sarnia earned five of six points on the weekend.
"That is good because it is divisional play" said Beaulieu. "Windsor won again today against Oshawa it just clogs everything up again. We were hoping for 6 but we got 5 so were happy."
Anderson was selected first star of the night, Boucher second and Basso who earned two points on assists was selected third star.
Sarnia is now 18 - 11 - 0 - 3 for the season.
The Sting have two home games next weekend when they host the Guelph Storm on Friday Dec 14 and Kingston Frontenac's on Saturday Dec 15. Both games begin at 7:05. These will be the last two games before the Christmas break.
