Sarnia Falls On The Road To Kingston 5-3
By Carl Chimenti
Duncan Schneider’s first career OHL goal proved to be the game winner as the Kingston Frontenacs (18-18-1-1) defeated the Sarnia Sting (19-13-4-2), Friday night at the Leon’s Centre in the Limestone city of Kingston, Ontario.
Linus Hemstrom from Paul Ludwinski and Nathan Poole, added the insurance goal into an empty net at 19:00. Poole had a three-point night with one goal. Jacob Battaglia had a goal and an assist and Christopher Thibodeau added two helpers in the win.
The loss snapped a three-game winning streak for the Sting as they gear up for a huge test Sunday afternoon against the best team in the Ontario Hockey League, the Ottawa 67’s, on the road in Ottawa.
Ethan Del Mastro (Chicago BlackHawks) scored his first goal as a new member of the Sting and it was his third overall this season. Zach Filak and Ryan Mast (Boston Bruins) also scored for Sarnia. Marko Sikic had a pair of assists, extending his point streak to five games (3-6-9).
After scoring a goal last night in his home town of Peterborough, Nolan Burke (Nashville Predators) picked up an assist in a milestone game tonight, playing game number 150 in the OHL, all with the Sting.
Ty Voit (Toronto Maple Leafs) had an assist to put him back in the lead in the OHL scoring race with 62 points. Voit also leads in assists with 51.
Luca DelBelBelluz (Columbas Blue Jackets) had his fourth assist for Sarnia as he ran his point streak to four games (2-5-7). Sandis Vilmanis (Florida Panthers) also contributed one assist.
Ben Gaudreau (San Jose Sharks) made his second straight start with 23 saves. Kingston out-shot Sarnia 28-22. The Sting went 2-4 with the man-advantage.
The Sarnia power play continued to stay hot. After scoring on both chances last night in the 4-2 win over Peterborough, the Sting scored in the opening period with their only 5-on-4 advantage as Del Mastro let go a blast from the point with the assists coming from Voit and Burke at 15:31. Unfortunately Kingston sandwiched a pair of goals in between the Sarnia goal and had an apparent third goal waved off early in the game due to an offside. Poole scored after the non-goal call at 8:29 to give the Frontenacs a 1-0 lead with assists awarded to Thibodeau and Matthew Soto. Kingston went back ahead 2-1 late in the period on a goal from Battaglia at 18:10 from Thibodeau and Paul Hughes. Kingston out-shot Sarnia 11-4 after the first twenty minutes of play.
Sarnia went ahead quickly in the second period scoring two goals in twenty seconds before the first two minutes of play. Filak scored his eighth goal of the season to tie the game 2-2. It was a power-play goal, the second of the night at 1:36 and the fourth in four straight chances this weekend over the last two games. Sikic and Vilmanis picked up the assists. Sarnia grabbed their first lead as Mast took a pass from DelBelBelluz from the end board and Mast from the point got all of it and fired it home. The play went under review for goaltending interference, but after a lengthy look it was ruled a good goal. Sikic had the second assist on the goal at 1:56. Kingston managed to tie the game at 4:52 from Thomas Budnick with Poole and Battaglia drawing the assist and the teams skated off tied 3-3 after forty minutes of play.
