The roller coaster ride that is the Guelph Storm power play appears to be back on top.
Red hot to start the season, then disappearing for a stretch, it was providing the thrills again on the weekend, fuelling a pair of key wins.
It included Sunday, where Brayden Bowman scored on the power play 2:25 into overtime to give the Storm a 3-2 win over the Sarnia Sting at the Sleeman Centre.
Bowman slid down the slot and took a perfect feed from Jett Luchanko before firing home a wrister over goaltender Karsen Chartier's glove.
It also connected for two goals Saturday in a road win against Owen Sound.
"That's going to happen over the course of a season. It's going to get high and it's going to struggle," said Storm coach Chad Wiseman.
"We're a team that needs to score on the power play. We don't generate a tonne of goals five-on-five, and that's something we continue to work on. But the power play came through again here tonight."
It was a game that saw two Storm goals in the third period overturned by review, with the replay determining both came after offsides at the blueline that weren't initially called.
"That's why there's reviewable plays," said Wiseman. "We believe they made the right calls on the offsides. It's unfortunate, but I loved our resilience and our attitude after those calls. It could have gone the other way, but we found a way to persevere.
"That's just focus. We kept our foot on the gas after those calls were made and I thought we controlled the majority of the play here tonight."
It was a bit of a mucky game, with just 24 shots combined after two periods. It looked like Guelph could get upset by a lower-tier team that had traded three of its top four scorers the day before.
It happened last weekend against Niagara and it happened a few weeks ago when Windsor came into Guelph and won 3-0.
"Anyone can win in this league on any given night. I loved the way that we managed the game here tonight, even if the score didn't reflect what the score could have been," Wiseman said. "If you stay with the process and if you trust the process then you're going to get rewarded."
Damian Slavik got the start in net for Guelph, making 17 saves, the biggest coming when he stopped Alex Cajkovic on a breakaway early in overtime.
Jake Karabela and Tommy Budnick, both in the first period, had Guelph's other goals. For Budnick it was his first in a Storm uniform.
Luchanko now has 17 points in his last 10 games, Karabela has 13 points in his last 10 games and Bowman has scored in five straight games.
Guelph heads north next weekend for games Friday in Sault Ste. Marie and Saturday in Saginaw. Next home game is Jan. 17, a Wednesday, against Kitchener.
This week is also the trade deadline, Tuesday at noon for overage players and Wednesday at noon for all others. There were a number of big deals announced Sunday. See them all here on the OHL website.
