There was no Easter miracle for the Guelph Storm.
The Sarnia Sting finish the OHL western conference quarterfinal series with 4-3 overtime victory on Sunday. The Sting closed it out in six games after opening up with a 3-0 series lead. The Storm would win the next two including a 2-1 victory in Game 5 Friday night.
“Super proud of everyone in that room,” said Guelph captain Cooper Walker. “Everyone counted us out in Game 4, thought we would get swept. But we battled back and made it a series.”
It certainly looked like the Storm were on their way to forcing a deciding 7th game when Matthew Poitras gave Guelph a 1-0 at the 15:51 mark of the first period.
Former Storm forward Sasha Pastujov answered for the Sting 7:36 into the second period to tie the game at 1-1. But two minutes later, Max Namestnikov (who the Storm acquired in the Pastujov trade earlier this season) scored his team-leading 4th of the playoffs and the Storm retook the lead at 2-1.
Ty Voit would tie the game for the Sting before the period ended. Both of Sarnia’s goals in the second period came after Guelph missed on opportunities to clear the puck from their own end.
“They have a good team there who can capitalize,” said Walker. “You have to limit mistakes and we made a couple that ended up with the puck in the back of our net. You can’t do that in playoff hockey.”
The Storm were also missing a pair of their top forwards late in the game in Valentin Zhugin and Braeden Bowman due to injuries.
“By the time we got to overtime, we were down to nine (forwards),” said Storm head coach Chad Wiseman. “Then you’re overplaying guys and running on fumes. But there was never any quit in that group.”
With the score tied at 2-2, Charlie Paquette would give Guelph its third lead of the game early in the third period for a 3-2 lead. The Sting would tie it 2:30 later on Pastujov’s second of the game.
Nolan Burke would send Sarnia to the second round with his series-winning goal at 4:05 of the first extra frame.
“Maybe we let off the gas pedal a little bit,” said Voit after Sarnia failed to close out the series in the two games prior to Game 6. “Obviously, that is a mistake that we are going to learn from heading into the next round.”
The loss was of no fault on the part of Storm netminder Patrick Leaver who made 28 saves. Benjamin Gaudreau stopped 16 of 19 shots for the Sting.
Sarnia will face the winner of the Saginaw-Flint series in the conference semifinal round. Game 7 of that series goes Monday night in Saginaw.
Meanwhile, the management of the Storm will be taking the next couple of weeks to prepare for the upcoming OHL draft that takes place April 21 and 22.