Guelph Storm coach Chad Wiseman called it "the ripple effect."
A night after taking eight penalties in a win over the Flint Firebirds, the sluggish Storm had to kill off six against the London Knights.
But they weren't getting away with it on this night against the hottest team in the league, as London won its eighth consecutive game, 5-1 over Guelph in front of 4,600 at the Sleeman Centre.
London connected twice on the power play but the Storm's core players were clearly a step behind after their workload the night before.
"Today's just a bit of a ripple effect of yesterday's events with being undisciplined and taking too many penalties," Wiseman said Saturday night. "We were just a little bit more tired today than we should have been.
"It made it a much tougher task than it should have been."
After a fairly even opening 18 minutes, Guelph's fate was sealed in the final 1:41 of the first period when London scored twice off the rush to take a 3-0 lead into the dressing room instead of a 1-0 lead.
"I really liked our first period. I thought we played a really strong, playoff-style 18 and a half minutes of the first period. But then they got the two goals on a couple of missed assignments," Wiseman said.
Braeden Bowman finally got Guelph on the board with a power play goal early in the second period, but the Storm had little sustained offence in front of London goaltender Zach Bowen, who had a pretty easy 25-save night.
Brayden Gillespie tended goal for Guelph, making 28 saves.
A one-for-nine performance on the power play by Guelph didn't help their cause.
London's Sean McGurn, Logan Mailloux and Ryan Humphrey each had three point nights.
The frustration of the night led two a couple of spirited fights.
Guelph's Isaac Enright jumped in to scrap Humphrey after a blindside hit on Jesse Fishman, then later Ryan McGuire fought London's Landon Sim.
The Storm is in Peterborough Sunday afternoon and plays in Sarnia on Wednesday. Next home game is Friday when the Saginaw Spirit visit.
