The Guelph Storm continue their strong play at home.
The Storm scored twice in the second period and held on to beat the visiting Niagara Ice Dogs 3-2 Friday night at Sleeman Centre.
The win snaps a two-game losing streak while improving their home record to 6-2-0-0.
The game-winning goal came off the stick of veteran blueliner Brayden Hislop, who received a feed from Jeff Luchanko and shot it from the high slot past Niagara goaltender Marcus Vandenberg (32 saves).
“Hopefully, I’ll do that a couple of more times this season,” joked Hislop, who recorded his first goal of the season in the game.
“It’s also nice to pot one in. It was nice to get that one out of the way for sure.”
Charlie Paquette (8) and Max Namestnikov (10) had the other goals for the Storm (11-8-0-0) who continue to generate chances and get pucks to the net but have not been able to deliver the desired results.
The Ice Dogs (4-10-4-1) opened the scoring as Ryan Roobroeck managed to lift one over the left shoulder of Brayden Gillespie (27 saves) in the first period for a 1-0 Niagara lead. Despite the goal, Gillespie and the Storm’s defence were able to limit Niagara’s scoring opportunities for much of the game.
“I think we could do a better job defensively,” said Hislop. “With doing a better job defensively will come offence and we saw that tonight.”
With the Storm up 3-1 in the third, Kevin He brought the Ice Dogs back to within one goal but that was as close as they would get. Storm head coach Chad Wiseman liked the way his team were able to win battles throughout the game.
“We take pride in defending first,” said Wiseman. “I don’t think we give up a lot of Grade A scoring chances. A lot of the shots we gave up were perimeter.”
Wiseman said he isn’t worried about the lack of scoring that the team has been experiencing over the last six games.
“The offence will come. The opportunities were there and as long you are getting the chances they’ll eventually go in.”
Neither team managed to score with the man advantage. Guelph had three power play opportunities, Niagara had four.
The next game for the Storm is Saturday night when they head on the road to Barrie to face the Colts. Game time is 7:30 p.m. and you can catch all the action on 1460 CJOY.