WEST VALLEY CITY, Utah – The Utah Grizzlies (20-13-2-0) defeated the Tulsa Oilers (16-12-2-2) 5-2 Wednesday evening at Maverik Center.
“We’re just going to build off of this, we feed off the fans at home, they’ve been great all year,” said forward Barry Almeida. “We’ll enjoy this, so we’ll be ready to go on Friday.”
Barry Almeida scored three third period goals for the Grizzlies to erase a 2-1 deficit in the final 8:35 of the game. T.J. Syner assisted on the final three goals. Shayne Taker assisted on the tying goal and game-winning goal for the Grizzlies.
“If you weather the storm, good things happen and our hockey club fell down early in that period, but there was no panic on the bench, we went out, worked harder and good things happened,” said Head Coach/General Manager Tim Branham.
Utah goaltender Ryan Faragher improved to 15-5-1-0 by stopping 27 of 29 shots.
Utah took a 1-0 lead 4:59 into the game as Jon Puskar walked in from the neutral zone and buried his fifth goal of the year. Tulsa tied the contest 53 seconds later.
In the second period, Utah killed 1:31 of five-on-three shorthanded time to keep the game 1-1 as they blocked several shots down and deflected several passes.
Tulsa took a 2-1 lead 1:42 into the third period off of a turnover at the Utah blueline and Dan Desalvo knocked in a rebound off of a breakaway.
The Grizzlies tied the contest at two on the power-play with 8:35 left in regulation as Charles Sarault danced in the circle before finding a wide open Shayne Taker who fired the puck in that was tipped home by Almeida.
Utah took a 3-2 lead with 2:40 left in regulation as Sarault won a face-off to Taker who walked along the wall and found Syner before Almeida backhanded in a loose puck.
Almeida’s final two goals came on empty-netters.
With Utah Grizzlies release