Even when his team was leading 4-3 late in the second period Wednesday night at the Sleeman Centre, Guelph Storm coach George Burnett thought it was smoke and mirrors.
He was proven right, as the Kitchener Rangers scored four unanswered goals in the game's final 21 minutes and 49 seconds to down the Storm 7-4 in what is starting to look more and more like a first round playoff matchup.
"It was awful, to be very honest with you," Burnett said of his team's performance."We'd be standing here a long time if you wanted me to dissect the whole hockey game for you.
"Right now we're not on the same page moving in the right direction. I wish I had some more depth at forward so I could put some guys in the stands to watch a little bit, but we don't, so we're going to have to work through it," the Storm coach said.
Guelph trailed 3-1 early in the second before goals by Pavel Gogolev, Danny Zhilkin and Jacob Roach had them leading 4-3 late in the period.
Burnett said his eam was up 4-3 despite not playing that well so he hoped they could find a way to rally of the momentum that got them the lead. They didn't.
Greg Meireles scored for Kitchener to tie it late in the second period then added the eventual game winner 1:17 into the third. Cam Hillis had Guelph's other goal.
Meireles had a six point night to lead the Rangers – three goals and three assists.
With Nico Daws nursing a minor ailment, Owen Bennett got the start in net for Guelph and allowed all seven goals on 28 shots, but two of the goals he was screened on, two were cross-ice one timers and another was off a rebound on a brilliant pad save.
So Burnett wasn't about to be critical of his young netminder.
"For us to play so poorly without the puck in front of our young goaltender, and that's probably the third or fourth time in a row now that we've done this, it's not fair to him."
The Storm power play sputtered again, moving the puck well at times but at the end of the day went scoreless in six attempts.
"We were a real good team. We didn't forget how to play the game," Burnett said of a squad that was in first place at Christmas but now sits sixth in the Western Conference.
In addition to Daws, Guelph was also missing forward Cedric Ralph, who was ill. Andrei Bakanov did return to the lineup after missing seven games with an injury.
Guelph hosts the Windsor Spitfires on Friday and the London Knights on Sunday.
