Guelph, Ont. – Kitchener’s third-period-push fell short in Guelph Saturday evening as the Storm was able to earn their first victory over the Blueshirts of the season. Down 5-1, Kitchener would score the next two goals of the contest but it was not enough as Guelph finished with a 5-3 triumph before a sell out crowd of 4,736 fans at the Sleeman Centre Saturday.
Guelph jumped out to the early lead at 4:34 of the first period. A hard dump-in was won by Danny Zhilkin (Winnipeg Jets) at the bottom of the left circle, a fake slap-shot fooled Marco Costantini before Zhilkin slid the puck to Matthew Poitras (Boston Bruins) who put the puck into the empty goal. Then at 6:05 Guelph doubled their advantage. In just his second game with the Storm, Max Namestnikov scored his third goal in two games. Max put a move on the Kitchener defender and got free to front of the net, roofing a backhand in tight over the glove of Costantini.
After killing-off a 5-on-3 penalty, Kitchener was sent back to the penalty box. Jake Karabela (Washington Capitals) with his back to the goal, backhanded a shot into the top right corner over the glove of Costantini to make it 3-0 Guelph after 20 minutes of play. Shots favoured the Storm 15-3.
It was a better start to the middle frame as a bouncing puck found the stick of Matthew Sop at the left face-off circle before his deflected shot trickled its way across the line just over two minutes into the period. However, it was a quick response by Guelph just 21 seconds after Kitchener’s goal. Matthew Poitras recorded his fourth point of the game and second goal beating Costantini off an offensive zone faceoff.
Another goal was scored off an offensive zone faceoff draw, this time Cam Allen connected on a point-shot at 11:56. That was the final action of the game for Costantini as he was replaced by Marcus Vandenberg after allowing five goals on 22 shots. At the end of two periods, the score was 5-1 for Guelph and shots favoured the Storm 23-9.
Kitchener recorded their second goal of the game with 6:33 remaining. Kyle Morey had a slot-shot blocked and Jesse Fishman collected the puck and fired a shot past the blocker of Jacob Oster. Carson Rehkopf got himself back in the goal column scoring with 16 seconds left in the game on a late power-play.
The final score in the game was 5-3 for Guelph and shots favoured the Storm 29-20. Kitchener finished the game 1-for-5 on the power-play and 4-for-5 on the penalty kill. All three stars in the game were awarded to members of the Guelph Storm.
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