Pavel Zacha scored a hat trick and added a pair of assists, as the Sarnia Sting defeated the Niagara Ice Dogs 6-2 Saturday night at the SSEC in OHL play.
In the first period, Zacha opened the scoring with a high wrist shot goal on the powerplay on a nice pass from Jakob Chychrun. Defenceman Jeff King notched his third of the season a couple minutes later to make it 2-0. Niagara's Johnny Corneil answered with his sixth goal to pull Niagara to within one at the end of the first frame.
The Sting's Troy Lajeunesse was handed a match penalty for a slew foot that put the Sting down a man for five minutes in the second period. The Ice Dogs had a goal waived off, Patrick White missed a penalty shot opportunity, and Zacha scored his second of the game shorthanded to put the Sting ahead 3-1.
The game got chippy at the end of the second period when Sarnia's Noah Bushnell dropped the gloves with Nick Pastorious. Bushnell was handed a game misconduct penalty for unsportsmanlike conduct on the play. Pastorious received two minutes for instigating, and a ten minute misconduct.
Patrick White scored an insurance marker for the Sting six minutes into the third to make the score 4-1. Zacha scored his third of the game shortly after and now has 12 goals on the season. Niagara's Anthony DeFrusia then scored on the powerplay to make it 5-2 Sting. Nikita Korostelev notched tallied his sixth of the season in the final two minutes of the game to put the Sting up 6-2.
Sarnia's Justin Fazio stopped 32 of 34 Niagara shots while Ice Dogs goalie Stephen Dhillon made 21 saves on 27 shots.
The Sting have now won three straight games. and remain second place in the West Division behind Windsor with 28 points.
Sarnia will embark on a three game road trip next weekend with games in Peterborough, Ottawa and Kingston. You can hear all of the action live on 103.9FM-1070AM CHOK.