AKWESASNE, ONT – The brooms were out in force at the A’nowara’ko:wa Arena Friday night as the fans of the Akwesasne Warriors were anticipating seeing their team skate the FHL Commissioner’s Cup in triumph. Unfortunately for them, the New York Aviators were determined to be poor house guests.
Propelled by a four-goal second period, the Aviators avoided a sweep by defeating Akwesasne 6-3 in game three of the best-of-five series. The Warriors, who lead the series two games to one, will have another shot to claim the inaugural FHL championship Saturday night back in the A’nowara’ko:wa Arena.
“(New York head coach) Rob (Miller) was prepared. They played well. They played better than us,” Akwesasne head coach Angelo Sanseverino said. “We made mistakes and they capitalized. That’s what the difference was.”
With their backs against the wall and brooms in the stands right behind their bench, the Aviators knew it was win or go home. They came out firing at Warriors’ goalie David Plouffe, forcing the net minder to stop four early drives. New York finally dented Plouffe’s armor at the 4:28 mark when Warren Galloway’s drive from the point was tipped home by Casey Mignone who was parked in front of the net.
Staked to a lead, Aviators’ goalie Kevin Druce came under fire from the now-awake Akwesasne offense. He made a brilliant pad save on a drive by Dan Tessier less than a minute after the Mignone tally to keep his team in front.
The Warriors showered Druce with seven shots in a span of seven minutes. The seventh, however, led to a juicy rebound that Tessier converted for his seventh goal of the playoffs and his 14th overall point. The goal at the 12:47 mark of the first stanza tied the score. Neither net minder allowed any other scoring over the final seven minutes to send the teams to the locker room knotted at 1-1.
Sanseverino said that the opening stanza was a bit frustrating as he felt his team could easily have been ahead going to the intermission.
“It was just a bit of overconfidence maybe,” he said. “We had bad bounces. I thought it should have been 3-1 after the first for us.”
Following a combined 24-shot first period (13-11 Akwesasne), both teams tightened up the defense at the start of the second. It took until almost the midway point of the stanza for things to break out.
It started when New York winger Andrew Scampoli exploded into the Warriors’ defensive zone. He executed a pretty left-to-right crossing move in front of Plouffe, beating the goalie who was caught moving to restore the Aviators’ lead. Less than three minutes later on a power play, Tessier once again worked his magic, this time snapping a quick shot from the right circle past Druce to even things up.
In the two previous games, it was Akwesasne that exhibited quick strike capabilities to turn the contests around. This time, however, the Aviators were the ones who had the rapid fire answer. Just 13 seconds after Tessier’s score, John Goffredo took a pass from Scampoli and whistled a shot past Plouffe to put New York ahead to stay.
The Aviators were not done. A penalty on defenseman Nicholas Kuqali put Akwesasne on the power play but it was New York who capitalized. Just seconds into the man advantage, Nick Vandenbeld grabbed a loose puck and took it into the Warriors zone. He beat Plouffe for a short-handed goal and a little bit of breathing room for Druce and the rest of his teammates. Then with just less than five minutes left before the intermission, Andrew Serse scored his first playoff goal on a brilliant rush and crossing play similar to Scampoli’s tally. The goal gave the Aviators a 5-2 lead that they would take to the final twenty minutes.
Sitting in the driver’s seat, the Aviators put the third period in the hands of Druce, who needed to redeem himself after two sub-par games in Brooklyn. As Akwesasne turned up the heat, Druce proved why he was the FHL’s regular season most valuable player, turning away several shots. Former NHL Devil, Panther and Canadian Pierre Dagenais finally was able to put the puck past New York’s goaltender at the 10:44 mark to trim the margin to 5-3.
Fully expecting the big comeback by their team after the first two games of the series, the Akwesasne fans waited for the big barrage but it never came. Druce saw six shots down the stretch, stopping them all and sending notice that the Aviators were back in the series. Stephen Obelnicki put the icing on the cake, scoring a late goal into an empty net to close out the scoring.
After the game, Sanseverino said that he hopes that his Warriors, especially the special teams units, will learn from the loss and apply the knowledge in game four.
“I hope my team shows up. That’s all. They just need to show up,” he said. “If they show up and play hockey, they win. That’s the only difference. They need to come out and play. They need to be more prepared.”
Game time Saturday night is set for 7:35 p.m.
Game Notes: Tessier’s three-point night vaulted him into first place in the post-season scoring race with 16. He is now two points ahead of New York’s Matt Puntureri and Michael Thomson who both have 14 points…Warriors’ defenseman Chad Bazin has the best playoff plus-minus rating at this point. He went into Friday’s game at plus-13 and now sits at plus-12…For the game, the Warriors out-shot the Aviators 42-29…The power plays continued to struggle as New York went 0-for-4 and Akwesasne was 1-for-5 in game three. For the series, the Warriors are 2-for-14 while the Aviators are 3-for-16.
Contact the author at wendy.hull@prohockeynews.com
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