Erie Otters
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By Carl Chimenti
Nicholas Surzycia turned in a second straight excellent performance and the Sting offense scored four goals in the second period for a second consecutive game to beat the Erie Otters 5-2, Sunday afternoon at the Erie Insurance Arena.
Ty Voit (Toronto Maple Leafs) with a goal (11th) and an assist was named first star and Marko Sikic continued his hot scoring, netted a goal and one assist, was selected as the second star. Sikiic now has a three-game point streak and is on a heater with 7 points in his last five games (2-5-7) for the Sarnia Sting (18-12-4-2), who jumped back into third place in the very competitive West Division, one point better than Flint.
Nolan Burke (Nashville Predators) scored his 23rd, Marcus Limpar-Lantz (11th) and Cooper Way his 4th also scored for the Sting. Sasha Pastujov (Anaheim Ducks) had two assists and has contributed six points (2-4-6) in his last two games.
Luca DelBelBelluz (Columbus Blue Jackets) making his Sting debut after being acquired from the Mississauga Steelheads along with defenseman Ethan Del Mastro (Chicago Blackhawks) in separate trades, picked up his first point, an assist in his first game. Del Mastro, who has just returned after helping Team Canada to win the Gold Medal at the just completed IIHF World Junior Championships in Halifax N. S., was not in the Sarnia line-up this afternoon.
Also contributing an assist each in the win was Ryan Mast (Boston Bruins), Zach Filak, who extended his point streak to three games (1-4-5), Easton Wainwright and Christian Kyrou (Dallas Stars) against his former team.
Carey Terrance and Elias Cohen (third period) scored for Erie and former Sting Alexis Daviault had an assist.
The opening stanza was a good news bad news period for the Sarnia Sting. The good news was that Surzycia was extremely sharp as he turned away all twelve shots, that included stopping an Erie break-away and another with a fine glove save. On offense the good news was that Sarnia scored on half of their shots, the bad news was that the Sting could only muster two shots through the first twenty minutes as Erie out-shot Sarnia 12-2. Burke scored the only goal, his 23rd of the season, a power-play marker from the side of the net and was set up by both Voit and Kyrou at the 51 second mark. The first period also featured a spirted fight in the final minute that saw Sarnia, Ontario native Joshua Hoover land a few blows to Otters forward Noah Sedore.
The Sting displayed their offensive power in the second period as they scored four times to open a 5-1 lead through forty minutes of play, as well as dominating the shot clock 12-5. Limpar-Lantz scored his eleventh goal of the campaign letting go a blast from just inside the right face-off circle for the Sting second goal at 4:44 with Pastujov and Mast assisting. The two teams than combined to score three times in a 23 second span. Voit made it 3-0 at 7:43 from DelBelBelluz and Pastujov. Sikic lit the lamp 15 seconds later from Filak and Terrance tallied for the Otters eight seconds later at 8:06. Way scored his fourth of the season in the final minute at 19:01 from Wainwright and Sikic.
Overall Sarnia went 1/5 with the man-advantage.
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Post Game Reaction: Nolan Burke & Ty Voit
Post Game Reaction: Nolan Dillingham & Ethan Del Mastro