A third period goal with just over five minutes remaining enabled the Guelph Storm to post a 5-4 win over the Sarnia Sting, Saturday night before 2,804 fans at the RBC Centre.

The loss was the first at home this season for the Sting in the Ontario Hockey League as their overall record is now 2-1-1-0.
Taylor Beck scored the winning goal, his second of the night, at 14:26 of the third period as he knocked in a centering pass. It was the only goal of the third period.

Guelph held a 3-1 lead after the first period before Sarnia battled back to square matters at 4-4 after 40 minutes.
The game was plagued by what seemed to be an endless stream to the penalty box by both sides. Three of Sarnia’s four goals came on the power play while Guelph had one goal with the man advantage.
 

“It’s hard to tell how we really played with so many special teams in the first and second periods,” said Sting head coach Dave MacQueen. “Our special teams were okay. But you can’t give a team like Guelph that many scoring opportunities. We continually shot ourselves in the foot.”

He added, “Five-on-five they were the better team. They seemed to be a little fresher in the third period. We generated a few chances at even strength, but not near as many as we need do.”
 

First round draft pick Alex Galchenyuk of the Sting had his best offensive game of the young season figuring in on all four goals with his fourth goal of the season along with three assists. Tyler Peters had a goal and two assists, Nail Yakupov recorded his third goal of the year while Brandon Francisco got his second. Brett Ritchie hit the scoresheet for the first time this season with two assists.
 

MacQueen says Galchenyuk, who now has seven points in four games, is getting better every game.
“First of all it’s not normal for a 16-year-old to score four points in a game. He’s playing better and better and getting more and more comfortable at center ice. With all the power plays tonight, we were able to get him out there a little more. He actually could have scored a couple of more goals if not for a couple of great saves by their goalie.”

In fact MacQueen used five forwards on the power play in the second period.

“The power play was struggling a bit. We don’t have a real quarterback on our power play right now. It’s early and we’re trying different things trying to find the right chemistry.”
 

 

Francisco got the Sting off to a quick start when he opened the scoring at 2:35 of period one banging home a rebound past Storm goalie Brandon Foote.

But the Storm roared back with three straight. Peter Holland scored from close range at 9:51; Tyler Carroll lifted a backhander over Sting goalie John Cullen at 13:13 while Matthew Sisca took advantage of some poor clearing by the Sting to score at 18:41.
The Sting went to work in the second period with three straight power play goals.

Galchenyuk whipped home a high wrist shot from the slot at 3:19, Yakupov drilled home a slapshot at 7:08 while Peters blasted home a slapshot at 9:39.
 

Two of the three power play goals came as a result of a five-minute major to Guelph’s Andrei Pedan for slew-footing.
Guelph tied the game at 14:11 on the power play when Beck’s wrist shot appeared to be going wide, but hit a Sting defenceman and deflected past Cullen.

The third period saw both teams more cautious paying more attention to detail. There weren’t a lot of good scoring opportunities by either side until the Storm took advantage of a Sting giveaway behind their own net and it resulted in Beck’s winning goal.
Sarnia did pull their goalie in the final minute and controlled the puck in the Guelph zone, but could not come up with the equalizer.

 

Sarnia finished with a 34-30 edge in shots on goal.
“We split two games this weekend as we played two good teams,” said MacQueen, when asked about the back-to-back games. “We will take this as a learning curve. Guelph is predicted to be right up there in our Conference this year.

We’ll take the positives and learn from our mistakes.”

The Sting now prepare for a busy week ahead. They travel to Sault Ste. Marie on Wednesday before returning home to host Owen Sound Friday night and the Belleville Bulls Saturday night. A week Monday on Thanksgiving Day, Sarnia plays at Windsor.


- Beck was first star with Galchenyuk second star and Francisco third star.
- Peters had a goal and two assists and leads the team in scoring with four goals and six assists for 10 points.
- The Sting went with the same lineup as Friday night against Sault Ste. Marie.
- Former Peterborough Petes general manager Jeff Twohey is now a scout for the Phoenix Coyotes. He says Galchenyuk
reminds him of Eric Staal, now the captain of the Carolina Hurricanes, who played his junior hockey in Peterborough.