SUDBURY – The Sting Sting went after only their second three-game winning streak of the season Friday night.

Unfortunately it was not to be.

The Sudbury Wolves scored a 7-1 victory over the Sting in front of 3,944 fans at the Sudbury Arena.

The loss snapped Sarnia’s modest two-game winning streak. They have not won three in a row since early November.

It leaves the Sting with a 22-30-4-2 record in the Ontario Hockey League. They also fell 13 points back of Guelph for the final playoff spot in the Western Conference as Guelph defeated Barrie. Sarnia has just 10 games left in the regular schedule.

Sting head coach Trevor Letowski said Sudbury was the better team.

“They outskated us and outworked us. They are also a good hockey team at home. I read their coach talking about how they got outworked in Sarnia and he wanted them to be a hungry hockey team. We knew that, they came out hard, but we didn’t respond.”

He added, “They played us very hard. Our depth was questionable tonight as we were missing three forwards. But we had too many guys who didn’t show up. Our defence wasn’t very good either.”

Sarnia fell behind 1-0 after one period as they were outshot 14-3 in the opening 20 minutes. The only goal came at the 19-minute mark on a power play as Eric O’Dell scored on a high wrist shot from the slot.

Sting rookie netminder Brandon Hope made several outstanding saves, including a pair of point blank stops when the Sting were down two players for 41 seconds early in the game.

The Wolves took command of the game outscoring Sarnia 3-1 in the second stanza.

Brody Silk gave Sudbury a 2-0 lead at 1:34 when he knocked in a rebound off a point shot.

Sarnia cut the lead to 2-1 at 3:57 when Brandon Francisco notched his 14th goal of the season converting a cross-ice pass from Tyler Peters.

But the Wolves struck for a pair of goals just over a minute apart to jump out to a commanding 4-1 advantage. Alex Racino was left alone in front of the Sting net and he backhanded home a high shot at 13:09 while Andrey Kuchin finished off an odd-man rush at 14:35.

The Sting came out with some energy in the third period and had several good scoring chances, including a breakaway by Nail Yakupov, but was stoned by Wolves goalie Alain Valiquette. He’s the same goalie that was pulled after allowing five against Sarnia in five minutes last Monday.

Sudbury paid special attention to Yakupov and Alex Galchenyuk and it paid off as the two gifted youngsters were held off the scoresheet. Yakupov had eight points in the previous two games and Galchenyuk six points.

“There’s no question Sudbury played those two guys hard,” said Letowski. “Sting fans know the two of them have been great for us all season. They bring it every night. But we need other guys to step up. We shouldn’t have to relay on those two young guys all the time.”

Any chance of a comeback ended when the Wolves scored three more goals by Michael Sgarbossa at 7:55 and O’Dell with a pair at 13:57 and again at 15:05 on the power play.

Sudbury finished with a 46-22 edge in shots on goal.

The Sting played with 19 players, one under the limit of 20, as forward Dean Pawlaczyk was handed a six-game suspension by the league on Friday. Pawlaczyk took a five-minute major and automatic game misconduct for a head-check with five minutes left in the game with Barrie on Thursday night.

“It’s a no-brainer for the league,” said Letowski, when asked about the six games. “He (Dean) had a brain cramp and it was a bad check. Our league is trying to eliminate hits like that. He came up high with a head shot. The league is going to come down hard and I’m not surprised.”

Pawlaczyk also took two, five-minute fighting majors, as it was his first game back to Barrie after being traded from that team earlier this season.

The Sting played against Sudbury with 10 forwards, seven defencemen and two goalies. Forwards Brett Ritchie and Jesse Stoughton did not make the trip due to injuries.

The Sting completes their three-game road trip Sunday night when they battle  the Greyhounds in Sault Ste. Marie. Game time is 7 p.m. The two teams next Friday at the RBC Centre at 7:05 p.m.

STING NOTES

- The Sting is staying at the Quality Inn in Sudbury, formerly known as the Ambassador Hotel. It was the first hotel the Sting stayed at when they joined the OHL in 1994. Letowski was a member of that first team, but says he vaguely remembers the hotel, although he did remember two teammates, Dennis Maxwell and Larry Courville being sent home by the team from Sudbury for discipline issues.

- Sarnia is now 3-25-1-2 when trailing after two periods while Sudbury is 20-2-0-0 when leading after 40 minutes.

- Sarnia’s road record dipped to 7-17-3-0.

- The Sting is 4-4 since Letowski took over as interim head coach.