The Sarnia Sting picked up their franchise record tying 41st win of the season Friday night, despite several regulars absent from the line up.
Without Travis Konecny, Matt Mistele, Sam Studnicka, Kevin Spinozzi and goaltender Charlie Graham, the Sting needed to fill some roster spots.
Cue Derrick Johnson, Brock Perry, Jacob Stos and Aidan Hughes, all of whom recently had their season with the Sarnia Legionnaires come to an end.
Despite the roster change the Sting got off to a good start, with Ryan McGregor picking up his first of two goals, to open the scoring midway through the first period. Nikita Korostelev scored five minutes later to open a two goal lead. Call up Derrick Johnson picked up an assist on Korostelev's 23rd of the season.
Jacob Stos, playing in his second game with the Sting, was ejected in the final minutes of the first period. He was called for a high hit on Ranger rookie Joseph Garreffa, given a five minute major for charging and sent off.
The Kitchener powerplay carried over to the second period but Sarnia was able to kill off the lengthy penalty kill. They even added to their lead midway through the period when Anthony Salinitri, who had quite the game offensively, finished off a beautiful pass from Pavel Zacha to score his 14th. Kitchener answered just minutes later, finally beating rookie goalie Aidan Hughes, who held the fort in the Sarnia net. In his fourth game, Hughes stopped 29 of 31 shots to record his second win of the season.
After seeing their lead trimmed to one, McGregor scored his second of the game to regain the two goal advantage for the visitors. Brandon Lindberg slid the puck into an empty net in the final seconds to cap off the 5-2 Sarnia win. Pavel Zacha recorded his third assist on the Lindberg tally.
Sarnia can set a new franchise record for wins Saturday night when they travel to Saginaw, before wrapping up the regular season Sunday at home against Windsor. You can expect more regulars to be out of the line up, as Derian Hatcher said earlier this week he's likely to rest some this weekend.
With Owen Sound winning Friday night, Sault Ste. Marie is guaranteed to finish seventh in the Western Conference, setting up a first round match up between the Sting and Greyhounds. Sarnia will open the playoffs at home Friday, March 25.
