After losing their season-opener less than 24 hours earlier, the Stingers men’s hockey team bounced back with a 4-3 overtime win at the Ed Meagher Arena against the Guelph Gryphons.

Stingers captain Trevor Blanchard’s short-handed overtime-winner with less than 30 seconds left brought the home fans to their feet and the team their first taste of victory this season.

“Coming down I knew he was a southpaw, shooting blocker-side, short-side, I didn’t think he was going to expect it,” Blanchard said about the Gryphon’s goalie. “I beat him clean once, I think it got the nozzle of his stick in the first period, so I knew I could do it once more,” he added.

“[Blanchard] told us that he was going to go out there and get us that victory,” said Stingers head coach Kevin Figsby in regards to his captain’s speech after his team squandered a 3-2 lead heading into the third.

The game started at a fast pace and both teams combined to score four goals in three and half minutes.

The scoring fest began at the 14-minute mark of the first period to see the game’s first goal scored by Thomas Laplante on a powerplay, when he roofed his shot over a sprawling Stingers netminder Patrick Lepage to give his team a 1-0 lead.

Concordia tied the game with a powerplay goal 1:20 later. Stingers forward Mike Baslyk tapped in a loose puck after the Gryphons goaltender let Marc-André Rizk’s wrist shot trickle by him. Blanchard got the first of his two assists of the night on this play.

In two games, Blanchard has two goals and three assists.

“You ever heard the expression ‘lead by example’? That’s exactly what he’s doing,” said second-year Stinger defenceman Brett Beauchamp about his captain’s stellar performance.

The Gryphons took the lead 30 seconds later only to see Stingers centre Corey Ruhnke tie the game with less than two minutes remaining in the opening period. Ruhnke took a pass out of the corner from linemate Dmitri Toupikov before shooting his second shot top-corner to send the teams to the locker room in a 2-2 tie.

The second period was marked with a never-ending series of penalties for both teams. A total of 14 penalties were called during the period, eight against Concordia and six against Guelph, including two checking-from-behind penalties. The Stingers scored the only goal of the period on a 5-on-3 power-play. Baslyk scored his second of the night when he tapped in the rebound off a Jesse Goodsell point-shot.

Guelph tied the game with an early, third-period powerplay goal after the Concordia defence failed to clear the puck in front of the net. The rest of the period looked much like the second, with penalties being dealt against both teams.

The Stingers will look to improve their record when they tangle with the Carleton Ravens Friday, at 7:30 p.m. at the University of Ottawa sports complex.