NORTH CHARLESTON, SC – On paper, the 2021 ECHL Kelly Cup Final series between the Fort Wayne Komets and the South Carolina Stingrays is supposed to be a good one. Both teams had a relatively easy time getting to the championship series against tough competition. Yes, the Komets had to play 51 games because of starting their season in February while the Stingrays opened in December and participated in 70 contests. Both have lineups that can light up goalies and play gritty, hard-nosed hockey. And most importantly each side wants to win the title badly.
When Game 1 dropped the puck on Friday night at the Carolina Ice Palace in front of a packed house of 553 hockey fans, everyone expected a tough, tight defensive match. Instead, what they got was a message that Fort Wayne does not want to take prisoners on its way to the franchise’s first ever ECHL crown.
Komets’ forward Brandon Hawkins stole the show with a hat trick to lead twelve Fort Wayne skaters with at least a point as the visiting Komets ran away with a 7-2 victory over the Stingrays. Veterans A.J. Jenks (goal, assist) and Shawn Szydlowski (two assists) and rookie Marcus McIvor (goal, assist) all collected multi-point nights in the lopsided win that gave the Komets a 1-0 lead in the best-of-five series with Game 2 set for Sunday evening in North Charleston.
With South Carolina having played the Eastern conference final no further than a moderately long in-state drive while Fort Wayne had to travel to Allen, Texas for the start of the Western conference series before winning over the Americans at home, it might have been expected that the Stingrays would have the advantage early. The home team did dominate play during the opening ten minutes of the first period. The Stingrays tested Komets netminder Dylan Ferguson with seven shots on net while South Carolina netminder Hunter Shepard saw just three in the same time frame.
Fort Wayne’s fourth shot of the opening frame became a harbinger of things to come. At the 10:26 mark, Alan Lyszczarczyk carried the puck into the South Carolina end and dropped a pass back to McIvor who crossed behind. As the defense stayed with Lyszczarczyk and backed in, McIvor was able to get to the mid-slot area and fired a shot that found its way past Shepard for his first professional postseason tally.
Less than a minute later – 53 seconds to be exact – the Komets were back on the attack. This time Nick Boka and Hawkins played a little game of give and go as Boka dropped a feed to Hawkins who came off the near boards and returned the favor to Boka. Hawkins went to the net where Boka found him for a top corner, short side snipe for his third playoff goal and a 2-0 lead that seemed to stun both the Stingrays bench as well as the team’s fans.
Late in the frame, Shepard rebounded to make three key stops during a late Fort Wayne power play to keep his team within reach at the intermission.
Two minutes into the second period, South Carolina had an opportunity to get back into the contest on the power play. The result was nowhere near what the Stingrays wanted as the Komets’ Oliver Cooper intercepted a pass in his defensive zone, knocking the puck into the neutral zone. Cooper outraced the Stingrays Cole Ully, muscling Ully away from the disc and driving to the net. Once he got to the crease, Cooper went forehand and quickly dragged the puck around Shepard on his backhand and scored his fourth of the playoffs.
Frustration started to set in on the Stingrays over the next few minutes. The home team had multiple chances, most notably ones by Caleb Herbert and Max Novak, to hit seemingly wide open nets but failed to find the target. Some of the anger was reigned in when at the 11:49 mark during a power play, Herbert held the puck in at the right point and sent the puck cross-ice to Michael Weis. Not seeing a shooting lane, Weis went right back to Herbert who drifted in a bit and rang a shot off the inside of the nearside post and in for his first tally of the 2021 postseason, trimming the deficit to 3-1 and breathing some life into the building.
The enthusiasm of the home fans was cut short nearly to extinction as Fort Wayne scored twice more before the middle frame was over. First at 14:29 on a power play, the Komets worked the puck around the outside of South Carolina’s penalty killers, finally getting it to Hawkins who nailed a one-timer from the nearside faceoff circle for his second of the night. Then with less than 20 seconds second remaining before the intermission, Matt Murphy took a stretch pass and sped into the South Carolina end. He lost control but Anthony Nellis was right behind to scoop up the loose biscuit, head down the slot and tuck a backhander into the back of the cage for the sixth playoff score this year for Nellis. The goal, coming with 11.6 ticks remaining in the frame, put the Komets up 5-1 at the break.
Things did not get any better for the Stingrays in the third. After failing to score on yet another man advantage, South Carolina felt the sting of Hawkins yet again. This time he danced down the far side of the ice trying to take advantage of a quickly closing odd-man rush. Hawkins got the the faceoff circle and whipped a wright shot past Shepard for his hat trick score, making it a 6-1 contest.
Midway through the period, Jenks put the cherry on top of the celebratory sundae with Fort Wayne’s seventh goal of the night. He started the play himself, working the puck to the back of the South Carolina net before beelining it to the cage. Down low, Matthew Boudens outmuscled a defender and hit Jenks with a feed. Jenks, finding no resistance, skated to the dead center of the low slot and scored his fourth of the playoffs. The tally ended the night for Shepard, who was replaced by Jake Kupsky.
South Carolina did manage to find the twine once more in the contest. Max Gottlieb did all of the work, skating end to end before beating Ferguson high to the glove side for the Stingrays second power play goal of the night. For Gottlieb it was his first of the 2021 postseason but it wasn’t near enough to erase the memory of a bad night.
Notes: Final shots in the game were 32-27 in favor of Fort Wayne… The Komets went 1-for-4 on the power play while the Stingrays were 2-for-8… Fort Wayne’s Ferguson finished the game with 25 saves on 27 shots faced to earn the win while South Carolina’s Shepard ended up with 22 saves in taking the loss. Kupsky stopped all three shots he faced in 10:44 of relief work… Stingrays’ Head Coach Ryan Blair became just the fifth coach to take his team to the Kelly Cup final in his first season… Should Fort Wayne win the series, Komets head coach Ben Boudreau will join his father Bruce as Kelly Cup winners. Bruce Boudreau, who later went on to coach in the NHL, won the league championship in 1999 with the Mississippi Sea Wolves.
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