Kitchener Rangers Shut Out Sarnia Sting
November 24,
2012
By DAVE BORODY
KITCHENER – Winning games against the Kitchener Rangers over the past five years has not been easy for the Sarnia Sting.
In fact it’s been down right difficult.
The Rangers defeated the Sting 5-0, Friday night in front of 7,247 fans at the Kitchener Memorial Auditorium.
Sarnia is now winless over their last five games to see their record drop to 12-11-0-2 in the Ontario Hockey League.
Kitchener has won all three games with the Sting this season and now holds a 12-2-0-1 record against Sarnia over the past six years. The teams play one more time.
The Rangers also improved to 10-1-0-0 mark on home ice this year. The Sting has won just once here during the last six seasons.
Kitchener took control of this game early jumping out to a 2-0 lead after one period and increasing that margin to 3-0 after 40 minutes.
The Sting was shutout for the first time this season.
“We didn’t give up a lot, only 11 scoring chances, but we only generated six of our own,” said Sting head coach Jacques Beaulieu. “We got off to another slow start. I thought we worked hard.”
The Sting went zero-for-five on the power play.
“Their penalty-killing was pretty good. They didn’t give us much in the middle. We need to get more traffic in front of the net.”
Beaulieu added. “The work ethic is there. We might have to change up the lines to generate more offence. When we were winning we had up to 15 scoring chances a game. We need to do that and also get some timely saves.”
Sarnia could muster only 21 shots at Kitchener goalie Franky Palazzese, who recorded his first shutout of the season. The Sting had only four shots on goal in the third period.
Rookie Brodie Barrick faced 32 shots in the Sting net.
Kitchener opened the scoring at 9:05 of period one when Eric Ming took a centering pass and whipped a shot over the shoulder of goalie Brodie Barrick.
The Sting had just killed off a penalty when Evan McEnemy put the Rangers up 2-0 at 17:15 on a low slapshot from the point.
The Rangers scored the only goal of period two at 7:28 when Darby Llewellyn’s wrist shot went between the legs of Barrick.
Matt Puempel on a pass out at 6:07 and Tobias Rieder’s power play goal at 13:40 completed the scoring for the Rangers in period three.
Kitchener finished one-for-three with the man advantage.
The Sting returns home Saturday night to host the Peterborough Petes beginning at 7:05 p.m. at the RBC Centre. Tickets for the game are on sale at the RBC Box Office, by calling 519-541-1717 or going online at www.sarniasting.com
Sarnia has only one home game next weekend. They host the Saginaw Spirit next Friday before road games in Peterborough and Oshawa on Saturday and Sunday.
- One of the players not dressed for the Sting was overager Craig Hottot, who left the team earlier in the day. Hottot has appeared in 11 games this season with four goals and seven assists for 11 points and 21 penalty minutes. He had just returned to the lineup after serving a 10-game suspension.
- Also not dressed were forwards Davis Brown and Justice Dundas, both injured, and defenceman David Nemecek, (numbers).
