Barry Wright/The Independent

Jack Van Volsen played a large part in Sarnia snapping a six-game losing skid beating the Flint Firebirds, 3-2 in a shootout on Teddy Bear Toss Sunday before 4,047 fans at Progressive Auto Sales Arena.

The veteran winger got the party started by scoring the first Sting goal of the game in the opening minute of the third period and then scored what proved to the decisive goal in the shootout.

The Sting win, the first for new head coach Matthieu Turcotte, snapped Flint’s 11-game winning streak.  The Soo had beaten the Sting, 6-2 in Turcotte’s debut last Friday.

After a scoreless first two periods, Van Volsen scored off a pass from Alessandro Di Iorio to bring down 4,375 bears and other stuffed animals to be distributed to the less fortunate over the holiday season.

Flint then took a 2-1 lead before Beckham Edwards scored the equalizer, his team-leading tenth of the season, with just 3:08 left in regulation time.

Patrick Quinlan stopped 25 of 27 shots in regulation time and then two of three in the shootout to snap a personal nine-game winless streak. It was his first win on home ice in more than two months.

The win also snapped a six-game losing streak by the Sting in Teddy Bear Toss games dating back to 2017 and improved their shootout record in the traditional holiday game to 4-1.

Sarnia, 7-14-4, is now preparing for a three game road swing through northern Ontario. 

They take on the Battalion in North Bay on Thursday, visit the Wolves in Sudbury on Friday and skate against the Greyhounds in the Soo on Sunday afternoon.