Tony Saxon, Guelph Mercury – Unless you’re the goaltender, nothing brings a smile to a hockey player’s face as much as being told the team plans on being more offensive.
These days, those happy players belong to the Guelph Storm, who improved to 2-1 in the pre-season with a 7-3 win over the Brampton Battalion at the Sleeman Centre Friday night.
That’s 16 goals on 83 shots in back-to-back games agains the re-building Battalion.
“He’s letting us go,” Storm forward J.P. Labardo said in reference to coach Jason Brooks’ loosening of the reins this year. “In the offensive zone, that’s our time to make it happen.”
Brooks wasn’t exactly ready to admit the Storm will be playing firewagon hockey this season, but he did concede to an increased emphasis on scoring.
“We’d like to score more goals and put more pressure on the opposing team this year,” Brooks said after last night’s win.
“We’re trying to activate our defence and I think that can be seen. When we do it properly, we can keep pucks in the offensive zone.”
The defence scored three times last night, two by Adam Comrie and one by Tim Campbell. Also scoring for Guelph were Vadim Guskov, Tyler Carroll, Connor Tresham and Matt Sisca.
Stephon Thorne, Craig Moore and Ken Peroff had the Brampton goals.
Brooks said an increased emphasis on offense doesn’t necessarily mean you have to give something up defensively. The key is execution.
“The more we work on it, we will eliminate more of those odd-man rushes that we saw tonight,” Brooks said.
For the second straight night, goaltender Cody St. Jacques came up big in the Storm net, making 29 saves.
Patrick Killeen allowed four of the Storm goals, Jacob Riley the final three.
Also for the second straight night, the line of Labardo, Tresham and Francis Menard had a very strong game.
With Brooks looking for line combinations for when games count beginning September 18, that trio is making a strong case to stick together.
“They’ve been great,” Brooks said.
“For the most part they’ve had because they’ve bought in.
“They’ve kept it simple and for the most part worked their butts off.”
Labardo said there is definitely chemistry between the three of them. Not dressing last night for Guelph were NHL-camp bound Peter Holland and Ben Chiarot, along with Corey Syvret, who was nursing a slight hip injury.
The win wrapped up the home portion of the exhibition schedule for Guelph.
They have two road games left. They will play Thursday in Niagara and then on Saturday in Barrie.