Get used to it.
A tight, gritty, fight-for-every-inch hockey game at the Sleeman Centre Friday night is the kind of hockey the Guelph Storm can expect the rest of the way as the regular season heads into the home stretch.
The Ottawa 67's prevailed, scoring the lone goal of the shootout in a 2-1 victory over the Storm.
Guelph coach George Burnett played a hunch in the shootout, using defencemen as two of his three shooters. But Ryan Merkley and Dmitri Samorukov were both stopped by Ottawa goaltender Olivier Tremblay.
"Tonight it was a hunch. Sammy has shown in practice that he's got a pretty hard move," Storm coach George Burnett said.
"You're always playing your hunches when you get in that type of situation and tonight they won that battle."
Guelph had tied the game with two minutes left in regulation when Cam Hillis found Alexey Toropchenko on Tremblay's doorstep for the redirect.
Isaac Ratcliffe hit the crossbar with time winding down and Merkley hit the post in overtime.
The 67's third shooter, Sasha Chmelevski, tucked the puck just inside the post beyond the outstretched pad of Anthony Popovich for the winning marker.
"I think we were pretty fortunate to get a point tonight," said Burnett.
"Nice to tie it up, but pretty disappointed not to get the second point here tonight. It's a pretty valuable point."
There wasn't much free-wheeling going on in this game. A lot of battles along the boards and not a lot of quality scoring chances for either team until late in the game, when both Popovich and Tremblay came up with big saves.
Not a lot of room for either team.
"Everyone's gearing down towards playoff time and teams are looking to do it the harder way and make sure you get the all-important point. That's what you're going to see, the intensity go up," said Storm captain Garrett McFadden.
"We know they've been playing some good hockey and we knew they were going to be hungry," said McFadden.
"I don't think we played a bad game, just maybe some bounces here and there," McFadden said.
While those tight-checking games can be frustrating for a team that relies on its skating like Guelph does, McFadden said it was important to stick to the game plan.
"Obviously, sticking to our game plan is going to help us in the future. Any time we go out of our way to make the extra play, we're going to get ourselves into trouble.
"You want to score goal, that's the exciting part about hockey, but as we move forward we're going to have to deal with games that are closer, not 5-4 and 4-3."
The Storm plays in Erie on Sunday then hosts Erie on Monday afternoon.
