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Storm score 2 in final minute, wrest home-ice edge back from Battalion: OHL post-game questions

NORTH BAY — The wall that is Jake Smith came tumbling down faster than you could say "overtime coming up" as the Guelph Storm snatched Game 3 and muted 4,249 North Bay Battalion fanatics. Now the underdogs have to recover almost as quickly.

With seventy-five seconds, it momentarily appeared North Bay had sealed the win when Nick Paul hit the empty Storm net, but the play was offside. With 30 ticks left, Nick Ebert threw a big bodycheck to keep the puck in the Battalion zone and whipped a point shot that Zack Mitchell tipped in to tie the game for the third time. Then the Jason Dickinson-Brock McGinn-Scott Kosmachuk line that had been stymied in the first two games pounced, with McGinn roofing a rebound with 10.5 seconds left for a 4-3 win and 2-1 series lead in the OHL final.

"I don't think I have seen a game shift like that," Ebert said. "It was pretty wild. It shows the character of our team, the never-die attitude and it paid off tonight. I almost jumped right off the bench."

The Storm's 1-2 punch epitomized how it found a gear that had been absent during the first two games at the Sleeman Centre. Regardless of the result, it would have been Guelph's best effort of the series, as it outshot North Bay 44-26.

"After we scored, we were pushing for the other goal because sometimes there's an emotional drain on the team that had the lead," coach Scott Walker said.

The Battalion had pulled out all the stops to get the lead, with Smith standing on his head and Dylan Blujus' point shots leading directly to their 2-1 and 3-2 goals. It also gave up a third-period tying goal in Game 1 and regrouped, but couldn't do so this time.

"We've got a real group of character players," coach Stan Butler said. "The way you lose games is sometimes harder than others but a loss is a loss. We don't have a lot of time to dwell on it. We basically kind of got to have 'Altheimer's' and not have a very good memory. Go from there."

The teams reconvene for Game 4 in fewer than 24 hours. Could that quick turnaround buoy the Battalion, who were outplayed for the first time in the series?

"You got to turn the page and worry about tomorrow, it's not a race to two wins, it's a race to four," fourth-year Battalion defenceman Marcus McIvor said. "It'll definitely be an advantage to be sleeping in our own beds, being on our own schedule, so I definitely think that will help us."

On with the post-game questions:

Guelph 4 North Bay 3 (Storm lead 2-1, Battalion host Game 4 on Wednesday) — What convenient cliché sums up how the tenor of the series may have changed? It seems the Storm has to be made to bleed its own blood before it steps to business. While the nature of the opponent is much, much different, they are following the same pattern that they did two rounds ago vs. London; squeak out the opener, lose Game 2 at home and come up with a resounding Game 3 roadie.

"Smith's done a great job," Walker said. "It wasn't just tonight, he's been great the last two games, our game plan was just to shoot. You can't stop. You can't get frustrated. We might have got frustrated in the second, but we just came out in the third and played."

Walker kept his lines intact but instead changed up his D pairings. Toronto Maple Leafs-drafted captain Matt Finn usually has Steven Trojanovic on the right side. Walker paired Finn and Los Angeles Kings seventh-rounder Ebert in the third to put his two best puck-moving defencemen together and get more sustained pressure.

"He's such a great skater," Walker said of Ebert. "I thought that's been his best game in a long time, not just the third. He can skate himself out of trouble and get away from the forecheck. I thought he did a great job."

North Bay owned the second and third periods of the first two games. It carried out Butler's game plan well for the most part on Tuesday, with the Jamie Lewis-helmed checking line helping keep the Robby Fabbri-Kerby Rychel-Mitchell troika off the scoresheet for the first 45 minutes. Smith was also exceptional, but like Walker said, the Storm was relentless. First McGinn drew a roughing penalty on overage Matt MacLeod that presaged Fabbri tying it 2-2 on a redirect shot with — omen alert — 13:13 to play. Then the Storm kept pushing after Blujus re-staked North Bay to the lead.

"They played a lot harder on the puck and they skated really well," Butler said of the Storm. "When they do that they're a tough team to beat."

McGinn's winner probably relieved untold frustration. The Carolina Hurricanes pick was stoned several times by Smith, never more so than on a 20-foot high-glove try in the second.

"We knew coming in, to play North Bay, they play that trap and battle really hard," McGinn said. "We just wanted to match that."

Guelph's play through games 1 and 2 lent credence to the notion the more tested team fares better by the end of the playoffs. It delivered when it faced the prospect of trailing in a series, just as it did in less urgent time-and-score situations in the Western half of the playoffs.

"The guys played with some urgency, got emotionally involved, got emotionally attached, did all the little things," Walker said. "You have to match if not exceed their emotion and passion for the game. I thought we did a pretty good job of that."

Is Fabbri fashioning a case for playoff MVP? Fabbri kept his linemates' plates piled high with chances and was denied on 10-bell saves by Smith in the first and third. The centre had a little help on his third-period power-play goal where his slapshot was hit a Battalion stick and fooled Smith. That ran the likely top 20 NHL pick's point streak to 11 games.

"It's a credit to him, he doesn't fall into letting the older guys do it," Walker said of Fabbri. "The older guys don't fall into that either. They expect a lot from him. We got a good solid group of guys, a lot of great leaders and they push him to be the best that he can be."

Neate Sager is a writer for Yahoo! Canada Sports. Follow him on Twitter @neatebuzzthenet.