The Guelph Storm got some encouraging words from one of the franchise's all-time greats prior to Saturday's Game 6 at the Sleeman Centre.
Los Angeles Kings defenceman Drew Doughty stopped by the dressing room to offer some words of encouragement to the Storm players.
"He came in the room before the game to give us a little pep talk, it was nice of him to give us a little speech talk and fire us up," said Storm defenceman Sean Durzi.
"To have him here supporting us and see us play first hand is definitely really cool, a little bit of a motivator," Durzi said.
Maybe Doughty gets a bit of the credit, but the 20 guys wearing the Storm jerseys deserved the bulk of it, as they downed the London Knights 5-3 in front of a crowd of 4,253.
The Storm, who once trailed the series 3-0, have now forced a seventh and deciding game in London Tuesday night.
"It was a little bit of a motivator before the game, but all that being said, it was pretty easy to get up for this game," said Durzi., who had his best game of the series.
Dom Commisso scored what proved to be the game-winner at 1:50 of the third period, a nice toe drag around a London defenceman before slotting it home past netminder Jorday Kooy.
That made it a 4-2 game.
Adam Boqvist scored on the power play three minutes later to set up a final 15 minutes of nailbiting hockey in front of the loudest crowd the Sleeman Centre has seen in quite some time.
They couldn't breathe easy until Nick Suzuki polished off his second consecutive three-point night by firing one into the empty net with 1:37 left in the game.
Isaac Ratcliffe and Jack Hanley had Guelph's other goals. Anthony Popovich, for the third straight game, was outstanding in net.
"I thought our compete tonight was as good as it's been in the series," said Storm coach George Burnett. "It's nice to have an opportunity to play Tuesday."
Guelph surrendered just one power play to the Knights and held them to 12 shots over the first two periods.
"We got some bounces and we got some breaks, but it wasn't from a lack of work tonight. I thought the guys worked hard.
"I'm proud of the way the guys have responded, but there's work to be done. Nothing's been accomplished here yet," Burnett said.
