Storm fall to ‘Dogs
For two periods the Guelph Storm played a near-perfect road game in a tough rink against a red-hot team.
Then they imploded.
The Niagara IceDogs scored three unanswered goals, all on the power play, in the game’s final 20 minutes to down the Storm 4-1 at the Gatorade Garden City Complex.
After Guelph failed to score on a lengthy five-on-three power play near the end of the second period, the IceDogs made good on their extra-man changes 11 minutes into the third period.
With Michael Latta just stepping out of the penalty box and Tyler Carroll still in it, the Dogs’ Freddie Hamilton beat Storm netminder Brandon Foote with a wrist shot from a sharp angle. That was just moments after Foote had made two brilliant saves in close.
Carroll was in the box again when the home side made it 3-1 two minutes later.
“I take responsibility. I feel like I let the team down,” said Carroll, the team captain. “I’m one of the go-to penalty killers and I wasn’t out there for the guys.”
The Storm was outshot 17-4 in that decisive third period, in large part because they spent half of it killing four minor penalties. Niagara goaltender Mark Visentin didn’t see his first shot off a Storm stick in the third period until the 11:25 mark.
“That was definitely the most frustrating game of the season so far,” said Storm winger Taylor Beck.
“We played a good first two periods. We could easily have been up 2-1 going into the third, then the third definitely killed us. Penalty after penalty,” Beck said.
Guelph did what it had to do for the first two periods playing in the undersized Garden City rink.
Some new line combinations seemed to have balance, they kept the game simple and did a good job of minimizing turnovers in the neutral zone, their Achilles heel of late.
