Cody McNaughton scored a hat trick and added two assists and rookie Ryan Horvat scored a goal and three assists as the Guelph Storm defeated the Plymouth Whalers, 9-1, in an Ontario Hockey League played Saturday night before 2,786 at Compuware Arena.
Besides MacNaughton's hat trick (19-20-21) and Horvat's goal (7), Guelph also received single goals from third star Andrey Pedan (9), Jason Dickinson (7), Matt Finn (9), Zack Mitchell (28) and Tyler Bertuzzi (4).
Matt Mistele scored the lone Plymouth goal, his second of the season.
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Plymouth (now 37-17-2-1) remains in first place in the West Division and second place in the Western Conference playoff race.
Guelph - currently out of the Western Conference playoffs race and in ninth place - improved to 23-26-2-3, good for 51 points. The Storm is one point behind the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds, who holds the eighth and final playoff spot. The Soo lost tonight, 3-0, to Niagara.
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Guelph led 2-0 after one period and 6-0 after 40 minutes.
McNaughton scored both of the goals in the first period, at 0:14 of a power play (batting home a rebound off Pedan's point shot) and then at 19:07 (finding a loose puck through traffic in the Plymouth zone and scoring, top-shelf).
The Storm pulled away for good with four unaswered goals in the second period. Finn scored from the right point at 1:52, Horvat scored on a rebound at the hash marks at 4:58, Mitchell scored with a hard shot from the lower rim of the right circle at 11:43 and Pedan scored from the left point through traffic at 18:32.
Trailing 8-0 in the third period, Mistele ruined Guelph goaltender Garret Sparks' shutout with a power play goal at 10:17 of the third period, accepting Beau Schmitz's pass and scoring with a hard, low shot from the right circle.
Matt Mahalak started in goal for Plymouth and stopped 16-of-19 shots in 22 minutes of work. He was pulled in favor of Scott Wedgewood after Guelph took a 3-0 lead in the second period. Wedgewood played the rest of the game, stopping 32-of-38 shots over 38 minutes.
Guelph outshot Plymouth, 57-31.
The last time Plymouth gave up nine goals? March 6, 2009 in a 9-4 loss to Windsor at Compuware Arena.
Plymouth is off until Friday when they host Oshawa at 7:05 pm at Compuware Arena (6:45 p.m., WSDP-FM, 88.1). The Whalers remain home Saturday, hosting Sudbury at 7:05 p.m.
