TURNER SAVES THE DAY FOR TITANS; STORM TAKE OUT WINGS AND BUCKS

November 9, 2011

On Saturday, the 29th of October in Deseronto, the Storm ran into the hottest team in the GMHL. The Temiscaming Titans came into the game undefeated and they took down the Storm 6-3 to stay that way. The Titans can thank their young goalie, Reilly Turner, for the victory as the Storm outplayed and outshot the Titans 41-33.

The first period was filled with exciting back-and-forth action. Deseronto outshot the Titans 16-14, but were unable to capitalize on three power play chances. The Storm had plenty of opportunity and the team made some great passes, but no one could find a way to sneak one by a red-hot Turner.

In the second frame, the Titans opened the scoring on a power play goal six minutes in to take a 1-0 lead. The Storm roared back to tie it up only fifteen seconds later. Carson Nelles scored on a pass from Curtis Ralph. Deseronto continued its strong play and two minutes later took the 2-1 lead on a goal by John Sweet, his fourth in the past two games. The go-ahead goal was set up by his line-mates Sean Anderson and Andrew Bobas. The Titans fell into some penalty trouble shortly after that and the Storm seemed to have all the momentum. But, three more Storm power plays came up empty, mostly due to strong goaltending by the 16 year-old Turner. The Titans started a push late in the period and snuck one past Storm goalie Pavlo Stepanenko in the final minute of the second period to even the score at 2-2.

The Titans continued pressing in the third and scored about two minutes in to take a 3-2 advantage. The Storm were turned aside on another power play and a number of chances after that. Temiscaming helped out their netminder with a goal at the 13 minute mark to extend their lead, but it was short-lived. Bobas took a feed from Sweet and scored for the Storm a minute later to make the score 4-3. That was as close as the Deseronto team would get though. The Titans scored on a power play to make it 5-3, and then added an empty net goal late to finish out the scoring.

The 6-3 final score was not indicative of how hotly the game was contested. The Storm fought tooth and nail with the first-place Titans, but ran into a goalie on a hot streak. Turner has the second-best Goals Against Average in the league and the Storm found out why Saturday night.

The Storm followed up that strong performance this past weekend, with a convincing 12-3 win over the Red Wings in Shelburne, and a 6-4 victory in Bobcaygeon.

 

We return home this weekend for a date with the Toronto Canada Moose Friday night at 7:30.  The Storm defeated the Moose in our first meeting of the season 5-4 in Toronto.