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It was becoming a very long night at the WFCU Centre on Thursday, until a pair of spark plugs gave the home side another improbable win.
Zack MacQueen and Kenny Ryan scored a minute apart in the third period, and Troy Passingham made 29 saves, as the Windsor Spitfires edged the Guelph Storm, 2-1, in front of 5,968 elated fans.
The Spits trailed for nearly 40 minutes of play before MacQueen tipped home a Nick Ebert point shot on the power play, at the 8:20 mark, to tie the game at 1-1.
Then, just two shifts later, Ryan camped out at the right post and banged a rebound home - past Storm goalie Brandon Foote - for the eventual winner.
The offensive burst almost seemed out of place in a what was, easily, the most tight-checking game of the season.
"That's a huge win for us," Ryan said after Windsor's 21st victory of the season. "We played hard and stuck with it."
Sam Lofquist opened the scoring in the first period for Guelph.
The goal was the result of some nifty work by Riley Sonnenburg, who beat Alexander Khokhlachev on a faceoff in the Windsor zone before kicking the puck back to the point, where Lofquist got rid of it quickly to beat a surprised Troy Passingham.
It would be the only puck to elude the Spitfires' veteran goaltender, who banked his 10th win of the season, in limited action.
Passingham kept his team in the game with several key saves through 40 minutes - none bigger than a pair of point-blank stops off winger Taylor Beck in the second period.
SHOTS ON GOAL
GUELPH 30, WINDSOR 24
SCORING
FIRST PERIOD
GUE Lofquist, (4) (Sonnenburg, Searle), 9:30
SECOND PERIOD
No Scoring
THIRD PERIOD
WSR MacQueen, (10) (Ebert, Johnston), 8:20 (PP)
WSR Ryan, (10) (Locke, MacQueen), 9:29
