Gaudreau Earns Shutout as Sting Win 8th Straight
Ben Gaudreau (San Jose Sharks) stopped all 21 shots and Nolan Burke (Nashville Predators) continued his hot scoring with a pair of goals, as the Sarnia Sting (37-17-5-3) beat the Hamilton Bulldogs (33-27-4-0) 6-0 in front of 3,632, jubilant fans, Wednesday night, at the Progressive Auto Sales Arena.
For Gaudreau it was his first shut-out of the season and third in his OHL career.
Burke scored his 48th and 49th goals of the year and now sits one goal back from the OHL leader Matthew Maggio of the Windsor Spitfires, who netted number 50 tonight against the Saginaw Spirit.
Burke, who was named as honorable mention as the Cogeco OHL Player of the Week this past Monday, ran his goal scoring streak to five games in which he has lit the lamp nine times. He totaled three points tonight, extending his point streak to 13 games (18-9-27).
It was the eighth straight win for Sarnia and ran their unbeaten streak to 13 games, the longest in the OHL this season. It was also the fourth straight game in which Sarnia has scored six or more goals in a single contest.
With the win Sarnia swept the two game season series against Hamilton.
Gaudreau was chosen as the third star, Ty Voit (Toronto Maple Leafs), who scored his 20th goal of the season and had two points, was selected as the second star and Burke was named first star.
Christian Kyrou(Dallas Stars) had a goal and two assists. He has a seven-game point streak (3-12-15).
Brenden Anderson and Ryan Mast (Boston Bruins) scored one goal each for the Sting. Single assist went to Lukas Fischer, Luca Del Bel Belluz (Columbus Blue Jackets), Cooper Way, Nolan Dillingham and Zach Filak.
Gaudreau stopped nine shots in the final stanza as Sarnia overall out-shot Hamilton 36-21. Burke scored the only goal in the third period.
The Sting scored the only power-play goal in the game in five chances, while holding the Bulldogs to 0/4 with the man-advantage. After a pretty tame first two periods, the third period heated up with a number of minor penalties, misconducts and even some fisticuffs.
The Sarnia Sting played a very efficient first period scoring three times while limiting Hamilton to just five shots on goal. Burke scored early at 1:57 with his 48th goal of the year. Fischer’s shot from the point made it on net and on the rebound, Burke used his long reach to put the puck into the net. Exactly seven minutes later Anderson scored his third goal of the season at 8:57 against his former team. Kyrou feed Anderson a short pass and his shot went on goal and trickled into the net behind Bulldogs goaltender Matteo Drobac for a 2-0 lead. Kyrou and Burke both assisted on the goal. Voit hit the twenty-goal mark on the power-play at 18:16, after he was set up on a pass from Del Bel Belluz. Voit one timed the shot, as he was falling down for a 3-0 lead. Sarnia out-shot Hamilton 12-5.
Sarnia tacked on two more goals in the middle period to open up a 5-0 lead after forty minutes of play. Way set up the fourth Sting goal with a pass to Mast and he scored through the five-hole for goal
number seven on the year at 8:30. Just 69 seconds later at 9:39, Kyrou scored, as his shot went off of Drobac and into the net. It was Kyrou’s 19th this season.
At that point Hamilton decided to make a change in goal as Tristan Malboeuf came in relief. Drobac stopped 12 of 17 shots. For a second straight period the Sting out shot the Bulldogs 11-7. After four minor penalties in the first period the second period was penalty free.
