It was the Sarnia Sting's first playoff win in over four years.
The hockey club took down the visiting Windsor Spitfires 5-2 Tuesday night in Game 3 of the first round playoff matchup -- the Spits now lead the series 2-1.
The Sting went 4 for 6 on the power play, and goaltender Ben Gaudreau made 31 saves and was named the game's first star.
"Good defence turns into great offence," said Gaudreau in the postgame press conference. "We got to focus on our zone and take care of that and the next thing you know, it's in the back of their net. So, just playing smart hockey is what we got to keep doing."
The Spitfires opened the scoring 7:47 into the second period on a goal from Ethan Miedema. Sting forward Ty Voit evened the score at ones with a power play marker at 17:01. With 15 seconds left in the middle frame, Max Namestnikov gave Sarnia its first lead of the series with another goal on the man advantage.
Windsor responded early in the third period when Ryan Abraham found the back of the net at 2:08. The Sting were back on the power play shortly after, leading to Nolan Degurse's first of two goals on the night. Just over two minutes later, at 6:07, Ethan Ritchie increased the Sting's lead to two with Sarnia's fourth power play goal of the game. DeGurse added an empty-netter at 18:30 to seal the win.
"We know that the last little bit our power play struggled -- we didn't get any in the first two games," said DeGurse. "We went through a lot video trying to find a new play or plays to work on to try and create more chances and it paid off."
The Sarnia-native also complemented the Sting penalty killers.
"There's desperation happening -- Ritch[ie] with a few huge blocks today, all of our PKers are really focusing down," said DeGurse. "You can see guys when they get that puck on the stick in our own end it's getting out, whereas sometimes maybe in previous games it wasn't getting out. But a little more urgency and bearing down on those clears and our killers have done a great job so far."
Windsor went 0 for 5 with the man advantage in Game 3 and is now 1 for 18 in the series.
Game 4 of the best-of-seven is in Sarnia Thursday night -- puck drop from the Hive and on CHOK (1070 AM/103.9 FM) goes just after 7 p.m.
