Three Mississauga goals in the span of 1:17 late in the third period made what appeared to be a blow out into a nail bitter for the Guelph Storm Sunday afternoon at the Hershey Centre but the Storm managed to add a late empty netter to seal a 7-4 victory in front of 3,511 fans.

Tyler Boston’s 8^th goal of the season opened the scoring just 2:25 into the second period after a scoreless opening frame which saw Mississauga out shoot the Storm by a 14-12 margin. A Tyler Bertuzzi shot from the top of the circle first bounced off captain Jason Dickinson before bouncing off Boston and past Steelheads starter Jacob Brennan for the 1-0 Guelph lead. Soon after the fisticuffs broke out as Brock Philips in his OHL debut for the Storm tangled with Everett Clark. Philips the Storm’s 5^th round pick in the 2014 priority selection was called up for the game with two defenceman on the sidelines after CJ Garcia suffered a knee injury Saturday night in Owen Sound while Phil Baltisberger served the first of a two game suspension for too many head shot penalties on the season. Ryan Foss would give the Storm a two goal lead at 10:14 putting away a Pius Suter rebound for his 6^th of the season but first as a member of the Storm following his trade from the Windsor Spitfires on January 7^th. Josh Burnside would bring the Steelheads to within one as he collected a weak clearing attempt down low from Noah Carroll and back handed the puck over Justin Nichols blocker side at 16:53. The Storm were quick to respond just 36 seconds later as a Zac Leslie shot from the point changed direction off the stick of Marc Stevens who collected his 3^rd of the season to give Guelph a 3-1 lead through two periods.

Guelph seemingly put the game well out of reach during the first half of the final frame as Luke Burghardt notched his first career Ontario Hockey League goal walking out of the corner and around Brennan to slip a back hander in to make it 4-1 at 3:30. A little over a minute later at 4:54 Tyler Bertuzzi would put away his team leading 41^st goal of the season after receiving a pass from Dickinson, broke in one on one and deked past Brennan for a 5-1 Storm lead. Pius Suter would make it a 6-1 game at 10:38 with his 31^st of the season after getting a cross ice pass from Chris Marchese and snapping it past the glove side of Brennan. Other than fighting majors to Philips and a first period fight by Luke Burghardt the Storm managed to stay out of the penalty box until the 14:30 mark of the third when Chris Marchese went off for slashing which would kick start the Steelheads into an offensive explosion of three late goals. Bobby MacIntyre would score his 3^rd of the season at 15:45 on the power play finding the smallest of spaces just over Nichols right shoulder to make it 6-2. The Storm lead was cut in half just 55 seconds later on another Mississauga power play goal this time by Brandon Devlin who would ring the puck off the post and in. The home side wrapped up their scoring just 22 seconds after that as Michael McLeod would pick up his own rebound as he drove to the net and lifted the disc over Nichols left shoulder to bring the score to 6-4 prompting a time out to be taken by Storm head coach Bill Stewart. Pius Suter would ice the game with his second of the contest with 28 seconds remaining to bring the final score to 7-4 in favour of Guelph despite being out shot 39-38 by the Steelheads.

Twelve different Storm players registered at least one point on the afternoon that saw the scoring spread out for the visitors. Tyler Bertuzzi and Pius Suter led the way with each collecting three points on the afternoon. Perhaps equally as impressive was the +5 rating by Garrett McFadden and a +4 rating by Kyle Rhodes. Both saw increased ice time with Garcia and Baltisberger out of the lineup.

The win briefly vaulted the Storm into third place in the leagues Western Conference with 70 points but a victory by the London Knights later in the afternoon in Sarnia put the Storm back into fourth place, one point behind the Knights with 10 games remaining in the regular season. Guelph now holds a seven point lead over the Owen Sound Attack and Kitchener Rangers for fourth place, though both Owen Sound and Kitchener hold multiple games in hand.

The Storm are back in action on Wednesday night as they visit Erie, Pennsylvania for their final regular season game against the Otters. Guelph will be on the road again Friday night in London before finally returning home on Sunday, March 1^st against the Kitchener Rangers.

The Storm could receive a huge boost their lineup next weekend as late Sunday reports surfaced that Robby Fabbri could be back in the Storm lineup as early as Friday night in London. Fabbri has been rehabbing the past several weeks in St.Louis with the Blues organization (his NHL club) after he suffered a severe high ankle sprain while playing for Team Canada at the World Junior tournament. Fabbri’s last game with the Storm was on December 7^th in Saginaw.

STORM NOTES:

• Guelph improves their record to 33-21-2-2 for 70 points

• Guelph’s road record improves to 15-13-0-1

• Guelph finishes their 20 game Eastern Conference portion of the 14/15 schedule with a record of 11-8-1-0. 4-5-1-0 at home and 7-3-0-0 on the road

• Guelph split their season series with Misssissauga losing 2-1 in overtime on home ice on January 9^th

• Chris Marchese is on a 7 game point streak collecting 2 goals and 9 assists for 11 points.

• Marchese has 14 points in 9 games since returning from injury on February 5^th

• Pius Suter has 10 goals in 9 February games upping his season long total to 32, second on the Storm and tied for 13^th in the league with Connor McDavid.

• Bertuzzi’s 3 point day snapped a 2 game pointless drought. Bertuzzi had not gone 2 games without a point since November 2^nd and 6^th.

• Bertuzzi’s 41 goals is 2^nd in the OHL behind only Joseph Blandisi who has 46 for the Barrie Colts

• With Foss and Burghardt scoring Kyle Rhodes remains the only Storm regular without a goal in the 2014/15 season

• Mississauga wore special pink jerseys for their annual Pink In The Rink game