Storm claim first victory of the season, 5-4 over Generals

It took three games but the Guelph Storm finally have that important first win of the regular season.

The Oshawa Generals came to town last night, marching into the Sleeman Centre for the only time this year as the 4th ranked team in the eastern conference, with the leagues’ assist leader (Allan McShane) and the rookie scoring leader (Nick Wong).

Wong, would open the scoring for the game with a beautiful deke around goaltender Anthony Poppovich 5:36 seconds into the first bracket. Shortly after, it was a power play goal by Storm captain Garrett McFadden getting past Oshawa goaltender Logan Gauthier to even things up (6:48)

Gauthier would eventually allow another 2 goals on six shots when Liam Stevens (9:22) and Isaac Ratcliffe (16:40) found the back of the net, ending the first period with a 3-1 lead over the Generals.

The second period was entertaining to say the least, both teams firing on all cylinders for the first 10 minutes of the period. Starting the period, Gauthier was on the bench, replaced by Kyle Keyser who  saw quite a few shots (as did Poppovich) but his stay on the ice wasn’t long, as a scramble in front of the net saw Keyser taken off the ice with an apparent upper body injury, sending Logan Gauthier back out.

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Danil Antropov would bring the game within one for Oshawa with a beautiful shot at 10:45 of the second, and that would be followed by Nick Wong’s second goal of the night at 15:21, tieing the game at 3-3.

Storm Defenceman Mark Shoemaker would be sent off midway through the second period for what was a Slew-Footing Penalty. Guelph’s penalty kill special team was top notch not only killing the 5-minute major for Shoemaker, but also a 2 minute minor as well shutting down a 5-on-3.

That was until the Russian import for Guelph, Alexey Toropchenko stepped onto the ice and made his presence known scoring twice, within about 90 seconds (17:29 and 19:02)  to make it 5-3 for Guelph.

The Third saw the Storm manage the lead for the majority of the period, allowing simply one goal by Danil Antropov for his second of the night.

Anthony Poppovich wasn’t given the honors of three stars, but his performance granted him the player of the game amongst his peers as he saved 36 out of the 40 shots he faced.

Speaking of three stars, it was Isaac Ratcliffe at 3, Danil Antropov at 2 and it was the St.Louis Blues prospect – Alexey Toropchenko with the honour of being called the first start of the night.

In total, Guelph (22)  was outshot by the Generals (40) and still managed to work as a unit to take home the victory and improve their record to 1-1-1 on the year, and the Gens fall to 2-2-0.

The Storm travel to Saginaw to complete their weekend with a Saturday night tilt against the Spirit south of the border. They’ll meet the Generals only once more this season, on December 17th in Oshawa.