The Sarnia Sting lost to the Erie Otters 4-3 before a Silver Stick crowd of 4,221 at the Progressive Auto Sales Arena Friday night.
Sarnia's Sean Josling, with his 28th goal of the season, opened the scoring at the 4:02 mark of the first period.
Then the Otters roared back with goals from Jacob Golden, a power play marker from Chad Yetman and a short handed goal off the stick of Daniel D'Amato before the period ended.
Ryan McGregor replied for the Sting six minutes into the second period, his 17th of the season, and Theo Hill, with his seventh, tied the game at three heading into the third period.
Brendan Hoffman scored the winning goal at 13:23 of the final period.
Benjamin Gaudreau stopped 35 of 39 shots for Sarnia while Daniel Murphy turned aside 22 Sarnia shots.
Hill said after the opening period head coach Derian Hatcher had some advice for the team.
" 'Hatch' came in and told us what we had to do and we stuck to the plan and we tied the game back up."
Hill said a five minute major penalty and a game misconduct for a check to the head assessed to the Sting's Jamieson Rees in the first period allowed the visitors to score on the power play.
"That five minute penalty really killed us there on the power play but we bounced back in the second period."
Rees had just returned to the Sting lineup from injury. The Ontario Hockey League suspended Rees indefinitely Saturday with a return date not yet determined. He will not be dressing for the Sting when they host Sudbury at 4:05 p.m. Saturday.
The pregame show starts at 3:35 p.m. on 103.9 FM - 1070 AM CHOK.