It was Eric Uba's turn to step into the spotlight Friday night.
The Guelph Storm winger, the sandpaper to the flash and dash that is the Guelph Storm's top line, scored a pair of goals and could easily have had four as the Storm extended its win streak to 10 with a 3-0 shutout of the Sarnia Sting at the Sleeman Centre.
Uba had just four goals coming into the game, as linemates Pavel Gogolev and Cam Hillis continue to pile up the points.
"I've been on the slide recently. It's been a couple of games since I got any goals or any points so it was nice to score a couple and help my team win," Uba said.
He's well aware of his role on the line.
"Gogolev and Hilly are playmakers. I'm the guy that's in the corners battling and hitting and getting them the puck and letting them do their fancy stuff. I just go to the net and bank it in.
"That's my game. I couldn't do what they do, so I'm happy to do the gritty work," he said.
"They've been getting lots of points the last couple of games, we've got lots of chemistry and it's fun playing with them."
Uba could have had the hat trick in the third when a nice feed from Gogolev gave him half the open net to shoot at, but he slid it into the pads of goaltender Ethan Langevin.
"I put it right into his pads," said Uba, fully recognizing his teammates weren't going to let him forget about that one.
Storm goaltender Nico Daws recorded his third shutout of the season, a relatively simple 17-save effort.
Sarnia, one of the highest-scoring clubs in the OHL, rarely had any sustained pressure and most of the chances they did have came from the perimeter.
The Sting had just seven shots on net in the opening 40 minutes.
Uba scored in each of the first two periods then Matt Papais added the insurance goal after some great work by Jacob Roach in the third.
"I don't think we expect to win every game. It's nice coming in with a streak, but we've got to work for every game we win and we've got to earn every game we win. We can't just come to the rink and expect to win, because that's when we're going to lose," Uba said.
Coach George Burnett said he was "really pleased" with the streak and the way his team played most Friday's game.
"We didn't give up a whole lot against a team that's capable of scoring a lot of goals," Burnett said.
"It was tough to give out the hardest worker (award) tonight because there were a lot of people that could have had a piece of it."
The only sour note to Friday's game was an injury to Cedric Ralph. He re-aggravated an upper-body injury early in the game and didn't return. He won't play Saturday when the Storm goes for 11 in a row with an afternoon game in Hamilton.
