Pelkey, Ice Bears escape Antz bite

FAYETTEVILLE, NC – If it is true that playoffs make stars, Knoxville Ice Bears’ forward Bobby Joe Pelkey must be a superstar right about now. Sunday night, Pelkey scored his second goal of the game 8:50 into the first overtime to propel the Ice Bears to a come-from-behind 4-3 victory over the Fayetteville FireAntz at the Crown Coliseum. The victory won the best-of-three series for Knoxville, sending it to the SPHL semifinals against the Huntsville Havoc starting Wednesday night in Huntsville. Pelkey’s goal came on his 10th shot on net of the game and 38th of the short series.

It also capped a huge night for Knoxville’s top line of Pelkey, Kevin Swider and Tim Vitek, who rejoined the lineup after sitting out a two-game suspension. Vitek equaled Pelkey with two goals of his own as the Ice Bears erased a 3-0 first period lead by Fayetteville. Swider added assists on three of the four tallies. “To get that many shots, he [Pelkey] was playing every other shift,” Knoxville coach Marc Rodgers said. “He’s a competitor and a leader and he takes a lot of pride [in winning] and has a lot of heart.” After back-to-back games, including an epic contest that went into double overtime and ended just past midnight Sunday, both teams entered the Crown with one goal in mind – win this game at all costs. Both head coaches were back behind the bench after sitting out the last two games. The one variable was the fact that Fayetteville was forced to play backup goalie Brian Bridges due to the actions of goalie Guy St. Vincent after Saturday’s game in Knoxville. St. Vincent was given a game misconduct penalty for an attempt to injure call resulting in an automatic suspension and league review. Fayetteville appeared to want the game more in the first. With Knoxville’s John Halverson in the box for hooking, Fayetteville’s leading playmaker Rob Sich capitalized on a rebound by Knoxville goalie Andrew Gallant to put Fayetteville on the scoreboard at 12:28 of the opening period. Less than one minute later at 13:43, Fayetteville’s Dan McNeill’s shot was redirected by Jesse Biduke past Gallant to light the lamp a second time. Not to be outdone, Sich, from behind the net, wrapped around and found a way to shove the puck through Gallant’s five hole to quickly bring the score to 3-0, all in less than 2 minutes. Knoxville headed into the locker room wondering how to get their top line of Swider, Vitek and Pelkey firing on all cylinders. Whatever Rodgers said, it worked. Vitek, who had been red hot before being suspended, took a pass from Pelkey and Swider and then knocked his own rebound past Bridges to put Knoxville on the board at 6:17 of the second. Later, Vitek ripped a shot past Bridges for his second goal of the night with help from Travis Martell and Pelkey, bringing Knoxville to within one at 3-2 at the end of two periods. “He [Vitek] has played enough hockey to know when to step it up and he’s been a winner for us in the past,” Rodgers said. “He had four or five good shots and great opportunities to score in the first and he played an absolute great game.” Fayetteville spent most of the second period defending their lead and was out shot 21-6. Bridges looked comfortable between the pipes, even with an ankle injury, and made some good saves to keep the tally close, but with only two minutes of scoring, Fayetteville needed to find the balance between protecting its lead and playing aggressive offense. Going into the locker room for second intermission, Stewart advised his team to keep doing what they were doing. “I told them to continue to play hard and don’t give up any odd-man rushes,” Fayetteville coach Tommy Stewart said. “We did a pretty good job but Knoxville was able to capitalize on a power play, their first power play goal all series and it came at a good time for them.” Knoxville’s big guns went back to work in the third, scoring at 6:20 to tie the game at 3-3. Pelkey, the SPHL’s fourth all-time leading goal scorer in the playoffs, was credited for the power play goal, the first power play goal for Knoxville in the postseason. Swider and Vitek earned assists on the goal. Neither team was able to find the back of the net during the final stages of regulation, setting the stage for the third overtime period in about 24 hours. Both teams headed into the third intermission to hash out plans for a quick resolution. Fayetteville kept the message simple: do the work and the chances will happen.. “Our overtime strategy was the same as last night, work hard and try to create opportunities,” Stewart said. For Knoxville, it was sticking with the basics and to what had been working all night. “Basically, our strategy was the same as in the second and third- keep the puck out of the middle work, their D down low, win battles on the wall, go to the net and make their team take penalties on us,” Rodgers said. Knoxville came onto the ice ready to take it home and dominated the action in the first five minutes of play with 10 shots on goal while limiting Fayetteville to no shots until the extra period was almost six minutes old. Then Vitek and Swider set up Pelkey for the goal that won the game and set off celebrations both on the ice and back home in Knoxville. In front of a loyal crowd of FireAntz fans, the teams honored the great hockey tradition of lining up for the handshake before the FireAntz saluted their fans and headed to the locker room for the final time this season. “There’s not much to be said,” Stewart said. “There are a lot of disappointed men in the locker room. There’s not much you can say.”  The bus ride back to Knoxville was surely a happy one but Rodgers knows the Ice Bears will be encountering a dangerous Huntsville team starting later this week. “They [Huntsville] are a smart club. They are fast and they have a lot of talent,” Rodgers said. “We have to do the same things against them as we did against Fayetteville.” But for tonight, Bobby Joe Pelkey and gang will relish in being one step closer to hoisting the President’s Cup for a third year in a row. Game notes…Pelkey ended the series with three goals and four assists for seven points…With  54 shots on net in Game 3, Knoxville logged an incredible 181 shots for the series. In contrast, Fayetteville posted 127…Mark Versteeg-Lytwyn led the FireAntz in scoring in the series with four goals and eight points. Kristina Shands is an intern for the Knoxville Ice Bears. Contact the author at kristina.shands@prohockeynews.com