The playoff picture became a little less clear Saturday night for the Sarnia Sting.
The Sting tried a comeback effort but fell to the Erie Otters 5-3 at Erie Insurance Arena. With the loss, Sarnia is stuck at 57 points and the seventh-place seed in the OHL Western Conference.
With its win, Erie now has 54 points, just one point behind the idle, eighth-place Windsor Spitfires with two weeks left to go in the regular season.
The Otters scored two first-period goals within 50 seconds of each other. Gera Poddubnyi opened the scoring, followed by Kurtis Henry for a 2-0 Erie lead.
Sarnia finally got on the board with a Hugo Leufvenius goal at 2:57 in the second period, but the Otters responded with a pair of goals of their own. Jamie Drysdale picked up an insurance goal on the power play at 11:14, then Chad Yetman extended the lead before the second intermission. Sarnia goalie Cameron Lamour was pulled after the frame for backup Ethan Langevin.
Sarnia scored back-to-back to get back into the fight. Sean Josling scored at 11:43, then Ryan McGregor pulled the Sting within one. Langevin was later sent off for the extra attacker, but Erie's Maxim Golod scored an empty-netter to seal the win and pick up those crucial two points.
Lamour and Langevin combined for 19 saves in the Sarnia crease. Cole Ceci had 29 saves in net for the Otters.
Sarnia associate coach Brad Staubitz says the team has to get more pucks to the net. "You know we preach to these guys we've got to get people and pucks to the net and it's not crazy at all. All three of our goals came off rebounds or off the backboards or out front where we collapse to the net and create offence from that."
Sarnia heads to St. Catharines Sunday afternoon to take on the Niagara IceDogs. The pregame show starts at 1:35 p.m. on 103.9 FM - 1070 AM CHOK.
