The Sarnia Sting have just six wins in 22 games on home ice this season following a 6-0 loss to Flint Friday night.
Firebirds defenceman Dmitry Kuzmin scored two goals and fellow blueliner Tyler Deline had a goal and an assist in the second of three games between Sarnia and Flint this week.
Flint led 1-0 after 20 minutes on Kuzmin's first of the game at 14:55. The Firebirds scored three more goals in the second, one on the powerplay and one shorthanded, to lead 4-0 heading to the third. The road team added two goals and outshot Sarnia 14-10 in the final frame.
"That's how you have to play night in, night out," said Sting head coach Alan Letang. "You see [Flint's] top players -- Othmann and Lombardi and Giroux -- the intensity they play at, the feistiness they play at, they finish checks, they play on the 'D' side."
Letang said his club didn't come close to matching the compete level of Flint.
"We were disconnected, our 'D' were way outside the dots at times, our forwards were getting caught low and not skating back, sometimes our shifts were too long. We had no energy, we had no jump, we had no extra compete... and it just snowballs from there."
Firebirds goaltender Luke Cavallin turned away 34 shots -- backup Nathaniel Day made one save midway through the third period in 31 seconds of relief work.
Sarnia's Ben Gaudreau made 17 saves on 21 shots through the first two periods. Sting backup Anson Thornton stopped 12 of the 14 shots he faced in the third period.
On Tuesday night, the Firebirds beat the Sting 7-3 at the Hive. Letang said they took this week's three game stint as a mini playoff series.
"[Flint] won the first two games pretty handily. Hopefully we can go on the road here and muster a little bit back."
Letang confirmed that Thornton will start Saturday night's game -- coverage on CHOK (1070 AM/103.9 FM) at 6:30 p.m.
Friday night's loss dropped the Sting's record to 19-20-3-1 on the season.
