Special Teams lead the Guelph Gryphons over the Western Mustangs
 
LONDON, Ont. – Goals from six different players lifted the Guelph Gryphons to a 6-4 win over the Western Mustangs on Friday night at Thompson Arena.  
 
"The one area of our game we've got to tidy up and continue to do so is our defensive game," said head coach Clarke Singer of the loss, "If we can do a good job at tidying up our turnovers in all three zones our goals against will come down."
 
The loss moves Western to 3-6-1 on the year, while Guelph improves to 6-3-1 and occupies fourth place in the OUA West.
 
The excitement started even before the opening whistle on Friday night, as a ceremonial puck drop was followed by an on-ice proposal (she said yes!) to delight the fans at Thompson Arena.
 
A total of 10 different goal scorers found the back of the net on Friday night, with Kyle Petit, Cordell James, Ray Huether, and Steven Beyers providing the offence for Western.
 
Brendan McGlynn made his first goaltending appearance for the Mustangs with a total of 34 saves. A former member of the OJHL's Oakville Blades, McGlynn joined the Mustangs roster this week, becoming the sixth goaltender to don the purple and white this season as injuries have ravaged Western's goaltending corps early in the 2017-18 campaign.
 
Jason Da Silva got the win for Guelph, stopping 39 of the 43 shots he faced on Friday.
 
The game got off to a fast start with Manny Gialedakis scoring a shorthanded marker a little more than two minutes in to give Guelph an early lead. Western responded at the 11-minute mark with a slap shot from Petit on the power play to tie the game at 1-1.
 
"Special teams wins and lose games for sure," said Pettit on the team's performance, "Our penalty kill gave up one tonight, that could've been the difference between the winning and losing. I think our power-play is doing okay and we just need to improve on our penalty kill."
 
After Ryan Migilaccio scored to put Guelph in front midway through the frame, the stage was set for a wild final five minutes of the period. The Gryphons started things off with a power play goal from Scott Simmonds to extend their lead before James tied the game a little more than a minute later with a shot just under the crossbar to cut Guelph's lead to one. J.P. Villeneuve restored Guelph's two goal advantage less than 30 seconds later to make it 4-2 for the Gryphons after 40 minutes.
 
The Mustangs came out strong in the final frame, scoring six minutes in as Huether slid the puck past Da Silva to pull Western within one. Once again the Gryphons didn't wait long to answer back, with Todd Windor scoring around three minutes later to re-establish Guelph's two goal lead.
 
A goal from Beyers in the 18th minute put Western within striking distance, but an empty net goal from Marc Stevens cemented a 6-4 win for Guelph
 
"It's still quite early in the season," said Singer looking forward to the team's next game, "we've got a plan that we're working on with lots of various aspects of our game. We've made some subtle adjustments to our special teams over the last couple of weeks."
 
The Mustangs will be back in action tomorrow against the third-place Laurier Golden Hawks. The game is set to begin at 7 p.m. in Waterloo, and fans can tune in live to OUA.tv to catch all the action.