Sarnia Sting vs Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds
November 21, 2009

The Sarnia Sting continues to struggle. The Sting dropped a 6-3 decision to the Peterborough Petes, Thursday night before 2,837 fans at the RBC Centre.

The loss was Sarnia’s sixth in a row, their longest losing streak of the year in the Ontario Hockey League. Their overall record fell to 10-14-1-0.

Things started well for the Sting as they scored the opening goal in a game for the first time in almost a month. But things went sour after that as Peterborough scored the next six goals to take control of the game.

“We were basically outworked again,” said Sting head coach Dave MacQueen. “When things go south they really go south. Our veterans aren’t producing, our young players are trying, but they can only do so much while our goaltending didn’t give us a chance tonight.”

When asked if there were any positives in the game, MacQueen replied, “nope.”

Sarnia’s power play was again a cause for concern as they went zero-for-10 with the man advantage. They are now operating at under 17 per cent on the power play compared to nearly 30 percent a month ago.

“Our power play continues to struggle even though we had plenty of opportunities,” said MacQueen. “Take the first period we are up 1-0 and then go zero-for-four in the period on the power play. We get another goal to go up 2-0 and the players start feeling good about themselves. That doesn’t happen and they come back and get an iffy goal to tie it.”

The Petes took a 3-1 lead after 40 minutes and scored three goals in a span of just over four minutes in the third period to put the game out of reach.

“That fourth goal really hurt us,” said MacQueen. “You could see the frustration starting to set in and emotions took over and it wasn’t very good.”

Sarnia did achieve something they have done all season at that was scoring two shorthanded goals a minute apart with about eight minutes remaining to cut the lead to 6-3. The Sting then had two goals called back.

“One was a high stick and that was a good call,” said MacQueen. “The second one was in the back of the net before the referee blew the whistle. You need to be in the proper position to make the call. But after saying that, that would have cut the lead to 6-4 with just over a minute remaining and probably wasn’t going to change the final outcome.”

Six different players scored for the Petes. They included Pat Daley, Jack Walchessen, Matt Puempel, Jamie Doombosch, Mike Lomas and Liam Heelis. Ryan Spooner had four assists.

Miroslav Preisinger was tops for Sarnia with a goal and an assist. Brandon Alderson and Kyle Neuber scored the other goals.

Jason Missiaen was the winning goalie as he made 34 saves, 15 of those in the third period. Shayne Campbell stopped 24 shots for Sarnia.

Sarnia swings right back into action tonight when they travel to London to meet the Knights, who are 11-1-0-0 on home ice.

“The guys have zero confidence right now,” said MacQueen. “They are beating themselves up. It’s a mindset right now. But my opinion has always been you make your own breaks. It you work at it, you can come out of something like this. But right now it’s not pretty.”


- Spooner was first star while Lomas was second star and Preisinger third star. Preisinger now has seven goals on the season matching his total output from a year ago.
- Peterborough outscored Sarnia 13-6 in the two games they played this year.
- Jordan Gladwish was the backup goalie for the Sting.
- The Petes were two-for-seven on the power play.