On a day that honoured the best power forward in Guelph Storm history, it was the team’s current best power forward that almost stole the show. Almost.
Givani Smith scored three times to stake the Storm to a 3-1 lead over the London Knights Saturday at before the Knights rallied late for a 5-3 victory.
It was Todd Bertuzzi Night at the Sleeman Centre, with the former Storm great on hand for a pre-game ceremony in which his number 44 was raised to the rafters.
“These games do suck,” said Smith, who leads the Storm with 14 goals in 22 games.
“For me, getting three goals then losing at the end really sucks. It would have been a lot better if we’d got the win,” he said.
Smith’s power play goal in the first period and a pair on opposite side of a goal by the Knight’s Janne Kuokkanen in the second period had the Storm leading 3-1 at the game’s midway point.
But these are the Knights and you knew they were coming and they did so in what was a dreadful final minute of the second period by the Storm.
First Rob Thomas made it a one-goal game with 50 seconds on the clock then Adrian Carbonara’s wrist shot beat Storm netminder Anthony Popovich to tie the game with 12 seconds left.
“For the vets it was no surprise. We were inside the dressing room telling the first and second year guys that London can score and that we had to play defensively sound,” Smith said of the London push back.
The winning goal came at 14:38 of the third period when Olli Juolevi scored with Guelph’s fourth line on the ice.
Storm coach Jarrod Skalde made no apologies for having that line out there in a tie game with time winding down.
“I’m trying to find guys that will work, guys that you can trust,” Skalde said when asked about the line choice at that point.
“You’re trying to find guys that will play the right way. It’s not about age and it’s not about experience. The shift before that there were guys with experience who were cheating for offence and I can’t reward that type of play,” Skalde said.
“We weren’t hard enough on pucks and there was a lot of stick checking. When you’ve got a team like that down 3-1 you have to be at least able to get through that (second) period: bear down, get in front of people and take people out.
“I just felt we just didn’t work hard enough as the game went along.”
The Storm currently sits in ninth place in the Western Conference standings, six points back of the Flint Firebirds and the final playoff spot.
They play in Saginaw Sunday afternoon. Next home game is Friday when the Erie Otters are in town.
