ERIE, PA. – It was like watching two different hockey games at the Erie Insurance Arena Wednesday morning.
The first game was a first period that saw the Guelph Storm fall behind 3-0 while being outshot 19-4 by the hometown Erie Otters.
The second game came in the final two periods, where Guelph battled back twice to tie the game before falling 5-4 in overtime.
“For whatever reason we didn’t come play off the top. We thought we could just throw our sticks out and compete against one of the best teams in the league and they just absolutely dominated us in all areas,” Storm coach Jarrod Skalde said.
“We decided to compete in the second period and good things happened.”
Alex DeBrincat scored the winner at 2:07 of overtime, finishing off a two-on-one with Taylor Raddysh.
The Guelph coaching staff was livid, feeling an Otters player jumped off the bench way too soon on a line change to help create the two-on-one situation.
“The guy jumped about four feet too early off the other door,” Skalde said.
“But you know what; we didn’t have the puck the whole overtime. If you can win that draw and get possession you can keep it, but they got the puck and they’re a good team.”
Erie used the old lacrosse line change on the play, with the player exiting the ice coming in the door closest to their end and the new player jumping out the far door to gain a quick and easy 30 feet of ice.
“We came out with a whole new mindset in that second period and got back in the game,” said Storm forward Isaac Ratcliffe, who scored his seventh of the season Wednesday.
“It shows what kind of team we are, we’re relentless and we don’t give up. But it’s a lesson learned, you have to play the whole 60 minutes.”
The first period didn’t start out too badly for Guelph, with the Otters not getting a shot on goal for over six minutes. But it went down hill quickly, as Christian Girhiny, Kyle Maksimovich and DeBrincat all scored within a span of just over seven minutes.
Dmitri Samorukov (his first in the OHL), Ratcliffe and Albert Michnac tied the game with three goals six minutes apart in the second period, two of them on the power play.
Erie took the 4-3 lead late in the second, but Nate Schnarr tied it up on an unassisted goal at 10:34 of the third to send it to overtime.
Erie coach Kris Knoblauch was asked if it made him scratch his head as a coach sometimes, the way a team can play so differently in two periods.
“I used to when I started coaching, but it doesn’t any more,” Knoblauch said.
“After that first period we thought it was going to be easy and we got away from the little things,” Knoblauch said.
“A lot of credit to Guelph, I thought they worked really hard and played a simple game. They didn’t give us much room and because of that we made a lot of mistakes.”
Guelph was outshot 44-25 in the game.
They hit the road this weekend for afternoon games in Ottawa on Saturday and Kingston on Sunday. Next home game is Nov. 11 when Ottawa visits.
Boxscore: Erie 5 Guelph 4 (OT)
