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“It felt
like I was playing again.”
Those were the first words of interim head coach
Trevor Letowski after the Sarnia Sting defeated in
the London Knights 4-3 in overtime, Thursday night
in front of 3,330 fans at the RBC Centre.
Ex-Knight Kale Kerbashian came back to haunt his old
team as he scored the game-winner at 1:43 of
overtime on a nice end-to-end rush. Sting netminder
Troy Passingham gained the only assist on the play.
The win snapped a six-game losing streak for the
Sting in the Ontario Hockey League while it was
Letowski’s first win as head coach after taking over
from Dave MacQueen on Monday.
“The guys gave me the game puck after the game. I’m
not sure what I’m going to do with it, but I’ll put
it somewhere special,” Letowski said.
The win was also the first over London this season
in five attempts.
“I was happy with how the guys responded,” said
Letowski. “We had some quality chances early in the
game and couldn’t finish. We took too many penalties
in the second period and they could have put us
away. But Passingham made some great saves to keep
us in the game.
“Twice in the second period we were down
five-on-three for over a minute. They scored one
with a two-man advantage and the game could have got
ugly and slip away. At the end of the night it was a
great effort by our penalty-killing unit.”
So what was the coach’s message before the game?
“Our message was to play the same for 60 minutes
whether we are winning or losing. The style didn’t
change. Push the pace and stay within our systems.
It was nice for the guys to get rewarded with the
goal in overtime.”
London opened the scoring at 8:30 of period one on a
shorthanded breakaway goal from Stephen Sanza.
But on the same power play, Sarnia tied the game 32
seconds later when Daniel Broussard scored his first
goal of the season on a high shot from the blue
line.
“It felt good to get the monkey off my back. I’ve
been shooting a lot more at practice recently.
Eventually I knew one would go in. I’ve had lots of
chances so one finally went in,” said a smiling
Broussard.
London went ahead 2-1 at 4:44 of period two when
Vladislav Namestnikov snapped a wrist shot over the
shoulder of Passingham from a sharp angle.
But the Sting tied the game less than three minutes
later when Joe Rogalski took a pass in the slot from
Brandon Francisco and wristed a shot over the
shoulder of Knights netminder Michael Houser. It was
Rogalski’s sixth goal of the year.
The Knights took their third lead at 11 minutes with
a two-man advantage when Seth Griffith scored on a
slapshot from the point.
Sarnia was assessed seven straight penalties,
including all five in the second period. When they
took their seventh early in the third period, Alex
Galchenyuk decided to take matters into his own
hands with a highlight-reel, shorthanded goal.
Galchenyuk took a pass from Broussard at centre ice,
skated over the Knights blueline, deked around one
of their defenceman and then whipped a backhand into
the top corner of the net. It was his 18th of the
year.
That would be it for scoring until 1:43 of overtime
when Kerbashian notched his 28th of the year. He
described the goal.
“It happened so fast. I had the puck behind our net
and was given room to skate. I saw when I got to
centre ice their defence was giving me room along
the boards. So I skated as hard as a could and was
able to get around the defence near the net and slip
the puck past the goalie.”
Kerbashian said the win was so important.
“It means a lot to the team and to the city with
everything that has happened this week. Nothing
personal to Dave MacQueen, but sometimes change is
good and that was evident tonight.”
Sarnia held a 33-28 edge in shots on goal. It marked
the first time in seven games Sarnia has allowed
less than 40 shots in a game.
The Sting was one-for-four on the power play and
London one-for-seven.
Letowski said he wiped the slate clean this week at
practice.
“I know we’ve been struggling of late, but I told
the guys we weren’t going to worry or dwell on the
past. It’s a fresh start and we are 0-0. I was proud
of the way they responded and they played hard.”
The win pulled Sarnia to within nine points if
eighth place Guelph in the Western Conference as
Guelph lost to Peterborough. Sarnia has 17 games
left and a game in hand over Guelph.
The Sting resume action Friday night when they
travel to Kitchener to battle the Rangers while
Sunday afternoon they are in Windsor.
“Kitchener is one of the elite teams in our league.
It’s going to be a huge test. Hopefully the guys
will remember this feeling. It won’t be easy, but if
we play the same way we did tonight, we’ll give
ourselves a chance.”
Sarnia’s next home game is Feb 18th against Barrie.
STING NOTES
- Broussard was first star while Namestnikov was
second star and Sting captain Nathan Chiarlitti
third star. Chiarlitti had two assists.
- Sarnia played without Craig Hottot (second game of
a two-game suspension), Brett Ritchie (mono) and
Anthony Donati (knee). Both Ritchie and Donati could
be back as early as next Friday.
- Alex Galchenyuk Sr. was behind the Sting bench as
one of three coaches and handled the defence.
- Sarnia is now 13-13-2-1 on home ice with just six
home games remaining.
- Sarnia and London play one more time this season
next month in London.
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