Owen Sound defeated Sarnia 5-4 despite Travis Konecny scoring three goals in his Sting debut, in front of 3,388 fans at the Sarnia Sports and Entertainment Centre Friday night.
Sarnia came out flying in the first few minutes with all four lines getting early chances. The momentum paid off when Brandon Lindberg scored his second shorthanded goal of the season to open the scoring. Ethan Syzpula evened the game just over three minutes later. The Sting outshot the Attack 13-8 during the first period but the two teams headed into the intermission tied at one.
The game remained tied until the Szypula scored his second of the game at the 18:41 mark to give Owen Sound their first lead of the hockey game. They would quickly add to their lead with Jacob Friend scoring just 29 seconds later. It appeared as if the Sting were going to head into the second intermission trailing by two until Travis Konecny scored his first goal in a Sarnia uniform with just three seconds remaining, trimming Owen Sound's lead to one.
Konecny finished off a nice pass from Pavel Zacha to score his second of the game and tie the game at three 8:51 into the third period. Kevin Hancock regained the Owen Sound lead scoring a breakaway goal, sliding the puck through the legs of Justin Fazio. Travis Konecny finished off a beautiful highlight reel effort to score his third goal of the night and bring the game back to a deadlock.
The game remained tied through the rest of the third period but momentum took a shift when Sarnia's Hayden Hodgson was sent of for a high hit on Petrus Palmu. He was given a given a five minute major for head checking and received a game misconduct with 2:12 remaining in regulation. Sarnia was able to kill off the first part of the lengthy length penalty kill and force the game into overtime tied at four.
The Sting killed off another 1:11 of the major penalty until Bryson Cianfrone scored a powerplay marker to give Owen Sound the 5-4 overtime win.
With the overtime loss Sarnia's record falls to 19-11-5-1. The single point brings their total to 44 on the season, nine back of the West Division eading Windsor Spitfires.
The Sting will hit the road to Saginaw Saturday night and will finish the weekend Sunday in Sault Ste. Marie.
