Sting Score Early Christmas Present, Down Otters 4-1
By Carl Chimenti
The Sarnia Sting acquired offensive minded defenseman Christian Kyrou (Dallas Stars), brother of former Sting forward Jordan earlier in the day and he quickly asserted himself into the line-up wasting no time to score his first goal against his former team as Sarnia beat Erie 4-1 on Wednesday night in front of 2,448 at the Progressive Auto Sales Arena.
Sasha Pastujov (Anaheim Ducks) scored a goal and an assist to help pace the Sting attack and was named the first star of the game. Kyrou’s goal was his ninth overall and he was selected the second star.
Porter Martone and Nolan Burke (Nashville Predators) scored once each. Ethan Ritchie, Chandler Romeo (Ottawa Senators), Zach Filak, Nolan Dillingham and Ty Voit (Toronto Maple Leafs) (3rd star) all contributed with one assist each.
Nicholas Surzycia turned in another outstanding effort turning away all but one of the 21 shots fired his way.
Sarnia out-shot Erie 33-21 and scoring in each period.
Sarnia scored the opening goal at 7:06 on a pretty three-way passing play that started just inside the Otters blue-line as Romeo feed a cross-ice pass to Ritchie and he set up Martone who buried the puck with his fourth goal of the season, past Erie goaltender Nolan Lalonde (Columbus Blue Jackets) from the slot.
The Sting made it 2-0 as Pastujov coming back from an injury that saw him miss the last three games, beat Lalonde on the glove side at 16:53 after he received a pass from Zach Filak.
Erie struck back with their lone goal of the game scoring with just three seconds left, at 19:57, on a power-play goal from Brett Bressette. Spencer Sova and newly signed Ondrej Molnar with his first career OHL assist were credited with the helpers. The Otters out-shot the Sting 12-9.
Sarnia dominated the second period out-shooting Erie 15-5 and scoring the lone goal. Kyrou scored on a delayed penalty call after he was set up by Voit and Dillingham. The goal came at 12:09.
