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MISSISSAUGA – The tough times continue for the
Sarnia Sting.
The Mississauga St. Michael’s Majors scored early
and often en route to a 7-1 victory over the Sting,
Sunday afternoon before a sparse crowd at the
Hershey Centre.
The loss was Sarnia’s seventh in their last eight
games in the Ontario Hockey League.
The Sting finished the month of January with a
dismal 3-9 record.
The Majors, currently ranked second in the Canadian
Hockey League, scored on their first shot just over
a minute into the game. They then peppered Sting
goalie Troy Passingham with 36 shots in the opening
period and jumped out to an insurmountable 4-0 lead.
The Sting had just five shots in the first period.
St. Michael’s was aided by six straight power plays
in the opening 20 minutes and they scored two goals
with the man advantage.
The Majors showed no ill effects of playing their
third game in two and half days as they dominated
the game from start to finish.
St. Michael’s finished with a 59-28 edge in shots on
goal. Rookie Brandon Hope relieved Passingham for
the second and
third periods.
Sting head coach Dave MacQueen was impressed with
the Majors.
“There’s a reason why they are one of the top teams
in the country. They had six power plays in the
first period and had 25 power play shots. They just
keep coming at you. That’s the best team I’ve seen
so far. There are no holes in their lineup. They are
a legitimate Memorial Cup team.”
He added, “you can’t come into a game like this and
shoot ourselves in the foot by taking that many
penalties early in the game. I pulled Troy after one
period because he’d seen enough shots for an entire
game. We certainly weren’t blaming him. It gave a
chance for Brandon to get some ice time.”
To make matters worse, the Sting lost defenceman Joe
Rogalski midway through the first period when he
collided with a
Majors player at the end boards. Rogalski did not
return.
With the score 5-0 in the second period, Kale
Kerbashian broke J.P. Anderson’s shutout bid with
his 26th goal of the season. Alex Galchenyuk and
Nail Yakupov assisted.
Rob Flick and Mika Partanan were tops for St.
Michael’s with two goals each while Alex Cord, Derek
Schoenmakers and
Casey Cizikas added singles.
The Majors finished two-for-seven on the power play
while Sarnia was zero-for-three.
The Sting will play three games in three nights this
week. It begins Thursday night when they host the
Plymouth Whalers
for the final time this season. Sarnia is also home
on Friday to Mississauga for their one and only
visit. Both games begin at 7:05 p.m. at the RBC
Centre.
Sarnia completes the week on Saturday when they
travel to Plymouth.
“We have no choice but to put these three games
behind us,” said MacQueen. “We need to go back to
work at practice this week. It’s not going to be
easy. We’re beat up right now both physically and
emotionally. We’ll try and find some chemistry and
go from there.”
STING NOTES
- Sarnia is now 1-4 with Brett Ritchie out of the
lineup. Ritchie is recovering from mono and not
expected back until March.
- Ex-Sting forward Gregg Sutch was a healthy scratch
for the Majors. The former first round pick of the
Sting is now into his third season in the OHL, his
second with St. Michael’s. This year in 37 games,
Sutch has seven goals and 14 assists and 71 penalty
minutes.
- St. Michael’s has 11 players on their current
roster that they acquired in trades over the past
two seasons.
- Despite having the best record in the OHL, St.
Michael’s only ranks 13th on the power play and 13th
in penalty killing. Sarnia meanwhile has dropped to
17th on the power play and 18th on the penalty kill
out of 20 teams.
- The Majors will host the Memorial Cup in May.
Tickets to the general public went on sale recently
and they are plenty
available.
- Ex-Sting Jamie Arniel is expected to play in the
American Hockey League all-star game Monday. He
plays for the Providence Bruins, the top farm team
of the Boston Bruins.
- -Kerbashian had his consecutive game assists
streak end at 11 games.
- Sarnia has now allowed 147 shots and been
outscored 19-5 in their last three games.
- Sarnia’s overall record is 18-23-4-2 while their
road record is 6-12-3-0. St. Michael’s improved to
18-4-0-1.
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