BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – What was at one point a close, competitive hockey game turned into a blowout Friday night as the visiting Dayton Gems downed the Bloomington Blaze 6-2 in front of 1,844 Black Friday refugees.
With the Blaze behind by just a goal and a power play coming up, Dayton scored three times in the final minutes, including a short-handed goal, a power play strike and an even strength goal to create the final margin.
The Blaze drew first blood just 4:14 into the contest when Kyle Laughlin’s slap shot from above the circle was deflected by Jason Dale. Dale tipped it past Dayton goaltender Larry Sterling. At that point, the Blaze led 1-0 and had held the Gems without a shot.
Dayton was unable to tie the score until the very end of the first period. With Travis Granbois in the penalty box for roughing, Dayton passed the puck around the horn until Damian Surma was able to send a shot past Blaze goaltender Marco Emond with just 6.7 seconds remaining in the opening period.
Dayton scored a pair of power play goals in the middle period, both by Brandon Naurato. The first was the result of a bouncing puck that made its way past Emond. The second was a case of the Gems passing the puck around until they caught Emond out of position. This staked the Gems to a 3-1 lead.
The Blaze then answered with a power play goal of their own. With just over a minute left to play in the second period, Aaron Dawson launched a skip-shot from above the slot that pulled Sterling to the ice before bounding over his shoulder for the score, cutting Dayton’s lead to 3-2.
Jon Booras broke in all alone against Sterling midway through the third period. He deked Sterling to the ice and tried to go high over the goalies left shoulder. Sterling was able to reach up and snag the puck out of the air to maintain Dayton’s lead.
Things started looking up for the Blaze when Dayton’s John Kennedy got called for hooking with just under eight minutes left. Bloomington pressured Sterling and was passing the puck for an open shot when Nick Fanto stepped in front of the puck and raced down the left side. Fanto unleashed a low slap shot from the top of the circle that Emond could not stop. The short-handed goal put the Gems up 4-2 with less than seven minutes remaining in the game.
A couple of minutes later, with the Gems on the power play, Ben Winnett slipped the puck past Emond. Twenty-one seconds after that, Nic Polaski blasted a shot into the corner of the net to secure the final score of 6-2.
That wasn’t the end of the action though as a total of 99 minutes of penalties were assessed in the final 37 seconds of the game. Travis Granbois fought Nick Duff. Matt Whitehead fought Jonathan Ornelas. Chris Chambers fought Greg Labenski. These were all precipitated by a scuffle that involved Sterling, the Dayton goalie.
Sterling, by the way, faced 36 shots on goal and stopped 34 for Dayton. Emond saw 39 shots and stopped 33 for the Blaze.
The Blaze actually may have outplayed the Gems at even-strength. However, they could not stay out of the penalty box. Dayton, ranked 12th in the Central Hockey League on the power play, was given an amazing eleven opportunities, scoring on four of them. Bloomington scored just once with six man-advantages.
The Blaze will re-group and try again Saturday night when they host the Allen Americans. Contact the writer at s haun.bill@prohockeynews.com
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