It’ll be seventh or eighth for the Owen Sound Attack.
Charlie Paquette scored twice and Cam Allen had three assists as the Guelph Storm cruised past the Attack 5-3 in Ontario Hockey League action Thursday evening at the Sleeman Centre.
Ryan McGuire, Gavin Grundner and Vilmer Alriksson also scored for Guelph (32-27-6-1), which extended its point-streak to five games.
Colby Barlow scored twice for the Attack (29-30-5-3). Servac Petrovsky also had a goal.
The loss ends any chance of Owen Sound finishing higher than seventh in the Western Conference. They no longer control their fate for that position either. Flint (30-31-4-1) could win both its remaining games and there’s nothing Owen Sound could do to catch them.
But for now, the Attack are seventh, one point ahead of the Firebirds.
Guelph led 2-1 after one, and added three more in the second to make it a 5-2 game.
Petrovsky cut the lead to two with 7:08 to go in the third. He was hauled down on a breakaway and awarded a penalty shot. He didn’t miss, shooting fivehole on Damian Slavik to give the Attack some life in the back half of the third.
But that was it.
Slavik made 24 saves in the win, while Carter George stopped 28 taking the loss. The Storm outshot the Attack 33-27. Owen Sound finished 0 for 1 on the power play; Guelph didn’t get any chances on the man advantage.
The Attack close out their regular season schedule on Saturday with the back end of this home-and-home against Guelph. Game time is 4 p.m., at the Harry Lumley Bayshore Community Centre.
100TH WATCH CONTINUES
Attack forward Deni Goure will have one final game Saturday to try and score his 100th career OHL goal. He’s been sitting on 99 since scoring in Owen Sound’s 4-3 overtime win March 9 in Erie, but hasn’t managed to find the back of the net in five games since.
30?
Owen Sound will have to win its final game of the regular season to keep the franchise’s run of 30-win seasons intact. The last time an Attack team failed to reach 30 wins was in the 2009-10 campaign. It’s been 12 straight seasons of 30-plus since then. A loss on Saturday and it’s over.
THE PLAYOFF PICTURE
The loss in Guelph assures the Attack will finish in either seventh of eighth in the Western Conference. That means, in all likelihood, they will get either London or Saginaw in the first round of the playoffs. Where Owen Sound finishes, and how the top 2 shakes out in the Western Conference will be figured out over the weekend.
RESPECTABLE ROAD RECORD
The loss in Guelph closes the book on the Attack road record for the 2023-24 regular season. They were a respectable 17-13-3-1 in away games this season. They have one more home game to go, but even if they get the win Saturday the win total can only be as high as 13 at the Bayshore this season. So, the Attack will end the season having won more games on the road than they did at home. That hasn’t happened in a long, long time. CHL unofficial stats man Geoffrey Brandow checked the numbers and you have to go back to the 2001-02 season for the last time an Attack team won more games on the road than they did at the Bayshore.