He’s Natural Hat-Trick Spoils Sarnia’s Comeback Bid 6-3
By Carl Chimenti
Kevin He (Winnipeg Jets) scored three third period goals and the Flint Firebirds (33-12-3-2) held off a Sarnia Sting (14-30-5-1) rally, winning 6-3, in front of 2,920 Wednesday night at the Progressive Auto Sales Arena.
Sarnia scored two straight goals in the final period to pull to within one at 3-2, but Flint scored the game winner on He’s first goal to stave off the Sting comeback bid.
Ben Pickell (15th) scored the first Sting goal at 5:51 as he jammed the puck in on the short side after some nice work from Beckham Edwards and Liam Beamish behind the net. Tyler Challenger scored his 6th of the season and 5th in a Sting uniform at 11:50, putting home a rebound shot off the stick of Jack Van Volsen. But exactly one minute later at 12:50, He scored unassisted, which proved to be the winning goal.
Sarnia scored one more time at 18:09 on a tip-in from Liam Beamish (9th) off a shot from the point by Cameron Aucoin. Matthew Manza drew the second assist. He’s second and third goals, both into an empty net at 17:05 and 19:38 respectively, wrapped up the scoring.
Challenger was selected as the third star of the game. Darian Anderson scored twice for the Firebirds and was the first star. He was the second star. Sting goaltender Patrick Quinlan had a good game as he turned away 17 of 21 shots. His counterpart Mason Vaccari was the busier of the two with 34 saves on 37 shots.
Sarnia was the better team on the shot clock 37-23 and in the face-off dot 39-29. On the power play, Flint went one for two and Sarnia failed to score in two attempts.
Flint scored two goals in the opening period despite the fact that Sarnia out-shot the Firebirds 10-8. Anderson scored a power-play goal to open up the scoring at 5:23. Anderson made a nice move in front and let go a wrist shot. Luka Graziano and Brady Smith assisted on the goal.
Flint added an even-strength goal at 15:10 as Jacob Battaglia (Calgary Flames) scored from Josh Bonnyman and Urban Podrekar.
The Firebirds scored the lone goal in the second period as both teams put nine shots on net. Anderson scored his second of the game at 12:26 from both Jimmy Lombardi (Los Angeles Kings) and Darels Uljanskis (Anaheim Ducks), as Flint skated off with a 3-0 lead after forty minutes of play.
