Guelph Storm coach George Burnett was sending messages the old fashioned way Friday night at the Sleeman Centre.
Burnett benched four players late in the game after they each took undisciplined penalties in a 4-3 overtime loss to the Owen Sound Attack.
OHL defenceman of the month Michael Buchinger and forward Valentin Zhugin were glued to the bench for the entire third period after taking bad penalties at the end of the second period, leading goalscorer Sasha Pastujov watched the final 15 minutes of the game after a silly whack on Attack netminder Nick Chenard's trapper after the whistle and Danny Zhilkin sat for the final five minutes of the game after a penalty behind the play in the offensive zone.
"That might have been the worst display of discipline in my five years here," said a clearly peeved George Burnett after the game.
"If we're going to have to shorten our bench by three or four guys to send some messages, then we'll do it. Because that's not acceptable."
Burnett said he wasn't as concerned about what happened in the overtime as he was in regulation.
"We were up 2-1 and we took two awful penalties at the end of the second period to give them life. Then more bad penalties in the third period."
Does he have to point out to a player when he takes a dumb penalty or do they know it?
"If they don't know it after tonight, then we've got a serious problem," Burnett said. "I hope the message is very clear that we're not going to accept the type of penalties that are being taken and that's why we did what we did tonight."
Cedric Guindon ended the game 18 seconds into overtime when his wrister hit a Storm defenceman's stick, blooped up into the air and over the shoulder of Guelph goaltender Owen Bennett.
Guindon had quite a night, scoring all four Owen Sound goals.
Guelph's Matt Papais had given the Storm the lead with just over three minutes left in regulation when he deposited a Jake Karabela rebound into the Owen Sound net.
Ryan McGuire and Matt Poitras had Guelph's other goals.
The Attack tied the game with 27 seconds remaining in regulation when Guindon's long wrist shot beat a screened Bennett.
Bennett didn't see the last three Owen Sound goals.
"We got exactly what we deserved tonight," Burnett said.
To start the overtime Burnett put out two defencemen, Daniil Chayka and Luka Profaca, and defensive centre Cooper Walker.
"We haven't had much luck in the overtime, so we put out arguably three of our top defenders and they still skated inside the blueline and scored on a wrist shot."
Friday was the first game at home for the Storm under full capacity. There were 3,402 at the game.
Guelph hosts the conference-leading Flint Firebirds Sunday afternoon at 4 p.m. Then it's three on the road, starting with a rare Monday night game in Owen Sound.
