With just four defencemen in the line-up for the So Greyhounds on Friday night against Gulp, many thought it was going to be a tough night for the locals, especially facing the likes of Storm troopers Dan Paella, Martin St. Pierre and Dustin Brown.
In the end though, defensive play reigned supreme as the Greyhounds fought for a well-earned 2-1 victory over the Storm.
The Greyhounds played the contest without four regulars, as forward Jeff Larsh was out of the line-up due to injury and defencemen Jordan Smith, Brad Staubitz and Jordan Kennedy were all on the sidelines because of suspensions received in last weekend's action.
To make matters worse for the Greyhounds, they played a better part of the second period as well as all of the third without rookie centre Tyler Kennedy who was injured during the second period.
In the first period the Greyhounds took the play to the Storm and pressured Guelph netminder Andrew Penner to make some solid saves to keep his club in the game early. Late in the period the Hounds struck as Niko Tuomi scored on a point shot that seem to hit the crossbar although referee Brad Beer ruled the puck to have hit the mesh in the top of the net thus giving the Greyhounds a 1-0 lead to work with.
In the second period the Storm came right back and took the play to the Greyhounds and Paille scored his 16th goal of the season to knot the game up at 1-1 just over five minutes into the period. Four minutes later the Greyhounds took a 2-1 lead, a lead that they would not relinquish, as Jeff Carter took a feed from Petr Taticek and stuffed the puck home.
In the third period the teams played some solid defensive hockey in what was an uneventful period. The Greyhounds played very solid defensively in this game. Adam Munro stopped 26 shots to earn the victory for the Hounds while Penner stopped 25 at the other end for the Storm.
The Greyhounds complete their two-game home stand on Sunday night when the Sarnia Sting makes an appearance at the Gardens for a 6 p.m. start.