SAULT STE. MARIE  – The dogs were barking loud at the Essar Centre Saturday night.
The Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds scored five power play goals on their way to a 7-1 win over the Sarnia Sting before 4,464 fans.

The Sting has now lost eight in a row and 11 of their last 12 and sit in last place in the Western Conference of the Ontario Hockey League.

One of the sore spots on the current losing streak is the Sting power play. They went zero-for-six last night and are zero-for-32  over the past five games.

Their last power play came Nov. 15th against Kingston when they were one-for-four with the man advantage. Brett Appio scored the goal at 18:01 of the third period in that game.

Sarnia’s penalty killing, which was so good against London, let them down against the Greyhounds as Sault Ste. Marie racked up five power play markers in 10 attempts. Sarnia sits dead last in penalty-killing statistics at 74.5 per cent. Barrie leads at 86.7 per cent.

Associate coach Greg Walters was in charge behind the Sting bench, along with Tim Bacik as head coach and general manager Dave MacQueen was in Whitby scouting a minor midget tournament. In fact the majority of the Sting scouting staff was at the Whitby event the entire weekend.

“You can’t win in this league with goaltending like that,” said Walters. “They had only 12 scoring chances and that’s pretty good for this league. But it’s almost impossible to win when they score seven goals on 26 shots.”

He added, “certainly giving up five power play goals is not acceptable. We didn’t play the price and it resulted in too many penalties. Our penalty-killing wasn’t that good, but your best penalty killer needs to be your goalie and that didn’t happen tonight.”

The Greyhounds defeated the Sting for the second time in eight days.

“I thought they didn’t do anything different than in Sarnia,” said Walters. “They did work the puck around well on the power play, but they had enough practice. But we gave up too many goals on point shots.”

Sarnia looked like a team playing their third game in three nights, including back-to-back games on the road as they trailed 2-0 after one period and 4-0 after 40 minutes.

The Sting dug themselves a hole quickly in the opening period as the Greyhounds scored on their first shot and again on their third shot.

Vern Cooper drilled home a high slapshot at 4:16 on a Greyhounds power play while Jake Carrick deflected home a shot at 10:51.

Sarnia’s best chance came when Ben O’Quinn had his second breakaway in as many nights, but his shot was stopped by Greyhounds netminder Bryce O’Hagan.

The Greyhounds extended their lead to 4-0 with a pair of goals two minutes apart early in period two. Both came off the stick of defenceman Brandon Archibald on high shots past Sting goalie Shayne Campbell.

The Sting could muster only five shots on goal in the second period. But their best scoring chance did not even count as a shot on goal as Zack MacQueen rang a wrist shot off the goalpost on a semi-breakaway.

The Greyhounds outscored Sarnia 3-1 in the final period. All three goals by the hometown team came on the power play by Brett Thompson, Daniel Catenacci and James Livingston.

J.C. Campagna of the Sting broke O’Hagan’s shutout bid at 8:35 when he knocked in a centering pass from Brett Ritchie for his third goal of the season. MacQueen also assisted on the goal.

The Greyhounds held a 26-21 edge in shots on goal.

Sarnia returns to action Thursday when they hook up with the Greyhounds for the third time this season beginning at 7:35 p.m. at the RBC Centre. The Sting plays at Niagara Friday night and is in Erie to battle the Otters on Saturday night.


- Sarnia has scored just one goal eight times over their first 28 games this year.
- Sarnia played without forwards Brett Appio (broken nose) and Craig Hottot (broken jaw), and goalie Adam Courchaine (shoulder). Goalie Jesse Raymond was up from the Sarnia Legionnaires as the backup while defenceman Anthony Donati played his second consecutive game in a Sting uniform.
- Sarnia’s road record is now 5-10-0-0.
- The Sting won six of eight meetings over the Greyhounds last year, but Sault Ste. Marie is 14-6-0-1 against Sarnia over the past five years.