Sarnia Sting Grinded Out a Point
Monday December 30, 2013
"We grinded out a point so that's encouraging." Sarnia Sting head coach Trevor Letowski said after losing 3 - 2 in shoot out to the Owen Sound Attack Sunday afternoon at the RBC Centre.
"It wasn't our best game." Letowski said "We felt we came out real strong the first few minutes of the game.
Nikolay Goldobin scored a minute and eight seconds into the game after taking a long pass from Bryan Moore and danced around Owen Sounds defence and slid it under former Sting netminder Brandon Hope.
"I thought they were ready to go and then we took a penalty early and that kind of set us back for the first period."
Despite the penalty Sarnia held on to a 1 - 0 lead after the first period.
Owen Sound came back and tied the game at 3:18 in the second and in the third period took the lead after scoring early at 3:22. Justin Brack and Kurtis Gabriel scoring for the Attack.
"They pushed us pretty hard in the second and I thought the third was ok." Letowski said
"We eliminated their chances and we got down a goal and again we were able to score the tying goal." referring to Nicolay Goldobin second goal of the game and his 27th of the season.
"Goldobin is hot right now and dangerous every time he's out."
Bryan Moore earned his second point of the night assisting on the tying goal along with netminder Taylor Dupuis who was credited with an assist on Goldobin's goal.
With the scored tied at 2 - 2 after regulation time the game went into overtime where neither side scored that sent the game to shoot out.
In the shoot out Owen Sound scored twice the first shooter by Gemel Smith and the third shooter Holden Cook. Goldobin shot second and was the only Sting player to score.
Owen Sound outshot Sarnia 45 - 18. Taylor Dupuis was outstanding in net for Sarnia making 42 saves that earned him the first star of the night. Brandon Hope took the win made 16 saves.
Sarnia took nine penalty minutes on four infractions, Owen Sound also took nine on three infractions. Both teams went zero for two on the power play.
The Sting are now one point ahead of last place Kitchener Rangers in the Western Conference of the Ontario Hockey League with a record of 12-20-1-3 for a total of 28 points.
Next up is the New Years Eve/Day home/home series against the London Knights. The Sting are in London New Years Eve with a game starting at 4:00 pm, then the two teams are back in Sarnia New Years Day at 7:05.
"Playing back to back against London is always fun and makes my job easy." Lewtowski said "It's a long season and you try and motivate the team any way you can and when you play London in good games like that it's easy because the motivation kind of built in for us."
