A long day turned into a long night for the newest member of the Guelph Storm.
Overage defenceman Jake Murray, acquired late Thursday night from the Kingston Frontenacs for three draft picks, hit the ice without knowing most of his teammates' names Friday night, as the sputtering Storm dropped a 6-1 decision to the Saginaw Spirit at the Sleeman Centre.
Murray was told of the trade late Thursday, packed his things and drove from Kingston to his family home in Oakville, then came to Guelph Friday.
"It's been super busy," Murray said after the loss.
"I found out late last night, packed up my things and said goodbye to my billets and drove home. This morning I came up here and set up my stuff, said hello to some of the guys, then went back to my home and got some more of my stuff sorted out then came back for game time."
Murray said he hadn't asked for a trade but knew one might happen.
"I was aware that it could happen at some point, but other than that I had no idea that it was going to happen last night. It all happened very quickly."
Murray will face his old teammates Saturday as the Storm plays in Kingston, before wrapping up a three-in-three weekend with a game in Ottawa Sunday afternoon.
"It's a little weird for sure, but I think it's kind of good this way because it doesn't give me too much time to think about it and I think that's best for me. I don't want to get it in my head too much," said Murray, who has played his entire career in Kingston after being a first round draft pick in 2018.
Murray is friends with the Storm's Peyton Robinson and works out with him all summer, but other than that doesn't really know any of the Storm players.
As for Friday's loss, coach Chad Wiseman said it best when he used a baseball analogy to describe the team's play, with everyone "trying to hit home runs instead of singles."
"Lack of compete ... if we won a faceoff we still lost possession, if we didn't wn a faceoff we didn't compete to regain possession ... we missed some blocked shots and obviously discipline was a factor," said Wiseman is rhyming off what went wrong on the night.
"We're going into a long weekend here and our guys are drained already, because they spend all night killing (penalties)," Wiseman continued. "Selfishness and lack of discipline.
"We're trying to hit home runs instead of singles. Instead of trying to do the little things and claw back into the match, we're trying to do too much. It ends up beind a domino effect."
Guelph couldn't maintain puck possession with any consistency, had too many one-man rushes, took what is becoming the usual bunch of bad penalties and had no sustained offence.
They fell behind 2-0 in the first before Danny Zhilkin got them on the board to make it 2-1 after one. But three unanswered Saginaw goals in the second period blew the game open.
Jacob Oster allowed five of the goals before being replaced by Dixon Grimes to start the third period.
The scoreboard wasn't the only bad news for Guelph in Friday's game.
Forward Sasha Pastujov got tangled up with a Saginaw player at centre ice in the first period and the end result was a match penalty for slew-footing, which comes with an automatic suspension plus a review by the league.
Next home game for Guelph is Friday against Oshawa.
