DANBURY, CT – Discipline is a hallmark of winning effort on the ice. If a team stays out of the penalty box, they don’t give the opposition chances to score.
One the verge of knocking the New York Aviators out of the FHL playoffs, the Danbury Whalers failed to keep their cool and it cost them dearly as the Aviators scored four power play goals on the way to beating the Whalers 7-0 in game four of the South division finals Saturday night. Matt Puntureri and Andrew Scampoli scored two goals each for the Aviators as they tied the best-of-five series at two games apiece.
The winner-take-all game five will be played Sunday afternoon at 5:05 pm at the Aviator Sports and Recreation Complex in Brooklyn. Danbury has won only once at the Aviator but it came last weekend in game two of the series.
With their playoff lives on the line, the Aviators could have come out like gang busters but instead played the opening moments of the first period with a patient calm. Danbury seemed to have a similar attitude, preferring to keep New York’s rushes to the outside. It took more than eight minutes for either team to register a shot on net.
Just before the nine minute mark, the Aviators caught a break as the Whalers were going to be called for a penalty. On the delayed call and with an extra attacker, Puntureri cleaned up the rebound of a John Goffredo shot that Danbury goalie Peter Vetri had stopped to put New York in front.
The Whalers tried to ramp up the action right after the score, taking the play to the Aviators and net minder Kevin Druce. Chris Seifert, the hero of game three, had an opportunity when he ripped a shot through a screen that Druce never saw but it hit the post and bounced to the corner. The Aviators had another good chance of their own when Nick Vandenbeld and Scampoli ran a give and go from the near wing but Vetri closed the door on Vandenbeld’s close-in shot to keep the margin at 1-0.
Facing the same situation as they had in game three, Danbury had to feel good just down by one, knowing that they had the ability to come back on the Aviators. Unfortunately for them and their fans, New York had other plans.
Head coach Rob Miller’s between periods speech must have been something because his Aviators came out literally flying. Aided by a man advantage to start the middle stanza, New York began an onslaught that would take all of the steam out of the host Whalers. It started at the 1:10 mark when KC Timmons’ drive from the point was redirected by Michael Thomson to Scampoli who deposited the puck into a wide open net to double the lead to 2-0.
Seven minutes later, more New York pressure led to another score as Nick Grove converted on a set up from Casey Mignone. Down by three and only having two shots on net in the period, Danbury began to really lose its collective cool when Corey Fulton grabbed an Aviators’ defenseman and started pounding away, drawing a five-minute major and a game misconduct in the process. Just past the midpoint of the penalty kill, Sean O’Malley took a high sticking call that gave New York a five-on-three power play for two minutes. The Aviators made the Whalers pay when Thomson and Grove combined to set up Puntureri for his second of the night at 14:33. By the end of the period, New York had out-shot Danbury 30-6 for a two period count of 43-12 and a 4-0 lead heading to the final twenty minutes.
The visitors could smell the blood in the water at the start of the third period and kept the pedal down. Another early power play became a goal when Puntureri made a pretty cross-ice pass to Brett Dickinson who blasted a one-timer past Vetri at the 1:17 mark to make it a five goal game. Just over two minutes later, Vandenbeld fed Scampoli who scored his second of the night to give the Aviators a 6-0 lead. It also ended Vetri’s night as Danbury head coach Chris Firriolo pulled his starting goalie in favor of backup Nick Niedert.
Niedert held New York off the board for about nine minutes until Jarrett Rush scored the Aviators’ fourth power play goal off of an assist by Puntureri at 12:44 to close the book on the score sheet. All that was left was to see if Druce could post the shutout. The Whalers were able to post the last six recorded shots in the contest over the final minutes but Druce was on his game, stopping every one to earn the goose egg and setting up the drama that would come on Sunday.
Game Notes: For the night, Druce recorded 22 saves while Vetri stopped 40 of the 46 he faced in suffering the loss. Niedert thwarted four of the five shots he saw in the cleanup role…New York went 4-for 10 with the man advantage in the game, bringing its series totals to 12-for-31. Danbury was 0-for-4 on the power play and is now 3-for-21 in the series…Puntureri, who was named to the All-FHL team, had been quiet since game one but had four points in game four… Teammate Scampoli was also a multiple-point poster, adding an assist to his two lamp-lighters…The winner of Sunday’s game five will begin the FHL finals next weekend against the North division champion Akwesasne Warriors, who will have been off for almost two weeks by the time the finals start.
Contact the author at don.money@prohockeynews.com
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