Home   Baseball   Bowling  Football    Hockey   3 on 3 Hockey    Lacrosse   Soccer     

Taylor Dupuis Solid in Net as Sting Win in Barrie
friday october 31, 2014


By DAVE BORODY

BARRIE – Goalie Taylor Dupuis didn’t start things off well Thursday afternoon when he was late for the team bus going from the hotel to the Barrie Molson Centre.

The head coach promptly fined him.

But the overage netminder was first on the ice with a jump in his step and chomping at the bit when the Sarnia Sting took on the Barrie Colts in their Ontario Hockey League match.

Dupuis provided a solid performance in leading the Sting to an important 7-1 victory over the Colts in front of 2,937 fans.

It was Dupuis' first game of the season after suffering a knee injury during an exhibition game with the London Knights in early September.
He turned aside 29 of 30 shots he faced and also nullified a penalty shot against him in the third period. (The Barrie player shot wide on the penalty shot).

“It feel good to be back,” said Dupuis, with a big smile on his face after the game. “It’s hard to put into words what the past six weeks have been like. It’s been very frustrating. But the way the guy came out and played tonight, I can’t thank them enough.”

He added, “It was good in a way, I didn’t get many shots early. Usually the first 10 minutes can dictate the game and we came out with good structure. It continued all game and made my job easier.”

Sting head coach Trevor Letowski was happy for Dupuis.

“It’s nice to have him back. We liked what we saw of him last year and we are hoping he can take the next step and be an elite player in the league. It wasn’t easy for him after missing that amount of time, but he made some solid saves.”

The win snapped a four-game winless streak for the Sting. They now sport a 5-6-1-1 record.

“We tried to prepare the guys tonight that this was a very important game for the group,” said Letowski. “We have a lot of road games upcoming and we wanted to get off to a good start. The guys responded. We executed our game plan and our puck movement was outstanding.”

Letowski added, “When we play like that and move the puck around like we did, we can be a dangerous team.”

The Sting wanted to get off to a fast start against the Colts and they did just that jumping out to a commanding 4-0 lead after 20 minutes.
Brandon Lindberg opened the scoring 2:07 when he outmuscled a Colts defender and snapped a shot over the shoulder of the goalie from the left wing.

Noah Bushnell put the Sting ahead 2-0 at 12:28 with his first of the year. Bushnell, playing in only his third game, took a centering pass from Alex Renaud and fired home a low shot from the slot.

Sarnia’s first power play proved productive as Pavel Zacha drilled home a cross-ice pass from Tony DeAngelo at 17:51. Zacha now has six goals.
Just 52 seconds later, DeAngelo scored his third goal of the season, an unassisted effort.

Besides the four goals, what was even more impressive was the fact the Sting killed off three minor penalties. On two of them, Barrie failed to get a shot on goal.

Barrie got on the scoreboard at 4:09 of period two when C.J. Garcia’s point shot appeared to change direction and beat Dupuis.

But any momentum the Colts may have received from the goal was short-lived as the Sting responded with three more goals.

Lindberg notched his second of the game and fourth of the year at 5:19 on a soft wrist shot from the left side, Hayden Hodgson deflected home a DeAngelo point shot at 9:38 while Vladislav Kodola scored his fourth of the year at 15:20.

Sarnia’s penalty killing was outstanding as Barrie was zero-for-seven with the man advantage. The Sting was one-for-three.

Barrie used two goalies, the first being yanked after Sarnia’s fourth goal. They faced 27 shots.

The Sting began a five-game road trip, their longest of the season, without two of their brightest young stars in Jakob Chychrun and Jordan Kyrou.

Both are competing in the World Under-17 Challenge in Sarnia over the next week.

Both players will not be available to the Sting for the entire road trip.

The Colts were missing five regulars, three of them serving suspensions.

Next action for the Sting is Friday night in Sudbury before travelling to North Bay Sunday afternoon to battle the Battalion.

  • DeAngelo had a goal and two assists and was the games first star. Dupuis was second star and Lindberg third star.

  • Nikita Korostelev picked up one assist to extend his consecutive games points streak to eight games. He has seven goals and seven assists over those eight games. He leads the team in scoring with 17 points.

  • As the Sting played their first of five straight on the road, Sarnia never plays more than three home games in a row throughout the season.

  • Sarnia’s next home game is not until Friday, Nov. 14th when Oshawa comes to town. They will also be home the next night to Sudbury. Both games begin at 7:05 p.m. at the RBC Centre. Tickets for all Sting home games are on sale daily at the RBC Box Office, by calling 519-541-1717 or going online at Sarniasting.com

  • Sarnia improved to 3-4-1-0 on the road. They are also 5-0-0-0 when leading after two periods.

____________________________________________________________________
 

 

 

 




 

© 1999 - 2014 Sarniasports.com - All rights reserved

About Us       Contact       Jobs