Storm top Otters, done with regular-season road games

ERIE, Pa. – The Guelph Storm wrapped up the road portion of their OHL regular season Tuesday with a 4-1 victory over the Erie Otters.

The Storm lost its bid for a shutout with just less than seven minutes to go in the third period while the loss kept Erie outside a playoff berth.

Guelph Storm 4 Erie 1

The Storm scored twice in each of the first two periods while Erie’s Brett Bressette scored on an unassisted effort at 13:52 of the third.

Matthew Pitras scored both first-period goals for Guelph while Braeden Bowman and Danny Zhilkin tallied in the second. All three have surpassed the 20-goal mark for the season as Bowman has 25 and the other two have 21 apiece.

Cameron Supryka had a pair of assists while Zhilkin, Luka Profaca, Sasha Pastujov, Matthew Papais, Daniil Chayka and Poitras each had one.

The Storm outshot the Otters 31-19 as they held Erie to seven shots or fewer in each period.

The game featured a pair of off-setting minor penalties as neither team had a power play in the game.

Owen Bennett had 18 saves for the Storm and Nolan Lalonde had 27 for Erie.

The Storm (34-24-5-3) are fifth in the Western Conference with two games to go. They’re two points ahead of the Owen Sound Attack (33-26-5-3) and will play either the third-place Flint Firebirds (41-20-1-4) or the fourth-place Soo Greyhounds (38-21-6-1) in the opening round of the playoffs.

Erie (26-36-2-2) is ninth with two games to play and the Otters trail the eight-place Sarnia Sting (26-35-4-1) by a single point. Top eight qualify for the playoffs.

The Storm have home games at the Sleeman Centre against the Kitchener Rangers (30-31-3-2) Friday at 7:30 p.m. and conference-leading Windsor Spitfires (44-16-3-3) Saturday at 7 p.m.

The playoffs are to begin next week.

• Guelph Sports Journal