Twenty-six seconds.
It's a short span of time the Grande Prairie Storm would dearly liked to have back.
Unfortunately the visiting Whitecourt Wolverines took advantage of those 26 seconds to score twice and turn a one-goal Storm lead into a one-goal deficit en route to a 6-4 win in Revolution Arena on Saturday.
The Storm, tied with the Drayton Valley Thunder for sixth overall in the North Division of the Alberta Junior Hockey League with 16 points, get another crack at the Wolverines – tied for first overall with 43 points – on Sunday at 2 p.m. at Revolution.
Whitecourt, 26 seconds or not, had all they could handle with the Storm on Saturday having to come from behind twice to secure the win.
The visitors opened the scoring at 2:16 of the first on a goal by Ben Evanish only to fall behind 2-1 when Cruz Cote (6:25) and Nathan Bizeau (16:46) scored for the Storm.
Whitecourt tied it at 2-2 on an unassisted tally by Morgan Messenger with just 53 seconds to go in the first frame.
The Storm took their second lead when Cote, whose four goals have been collected on two two-goal games, netted his second 3:17 into the second.
And then that 26-second game changer.
Evanish tied it at 3-3 with his second at 11:49 and then Estian Coetzee made it 4-3 at 12:15.
The Wolverines moved ahead by two at 8:31 of the third on a powerplay goal by Colton Meekhof before Bizeau's second of the game made it interesting at 5-4 at 13:18.
The Storm put a push on in the final few minutes pulling goaltender Eric Jackson and had some good pressure but an empty netter by Justin Long with 25 seconds to go finished it off.
Jackson looked at 33 shots during his 58:37 of service while the Storm fired 23 at Pierce Diamond at the other end.
While the loss, the Storm's 11th in a row, didn't affect their positioning in the standings both they and the Thunder find themselves just four points ahead of the eighth place Lloydminster Bobcats. The 'Cats grabbed a point in a 4-3 overtime loss to the Fort McMurray Oil Barons Saturday.