KALAMAZOO, MI – The Kalamazoo Wings (6-10-2-1), proud ECHL affiliate of the National Hockey League’s Vancouver Canucks, battled valiantly but came up just short against the Bloomington Bison (11-5-2-2) in a shootout affair Wednesday at Wings Event Center, 5-4.
Powell Connor (1) ignited the K-Wings offense with a breakaway bar-down snipe for his first goal of the season. On the play, Hunter Strand (4) stole the puck from near the blue line and laced a pass to Connor in the neutral zone for the fastest K-Wings goal of the season, just 58 seconds into the first period.
Bloomington tied the game at one at the 10:34 mark, but Kalamazoo exploded for three goals in the second.
Andre Ghantous (4) broke the stalemate with a putback wrister just inside the left post at the 5:56 mark of the second period. On the setup, Davis Pennington (7) sent the puck along the blue line to Jayden Lee (4), who launched a bomb from deep that redirected to Ghantous for the rebound goal.
Tacking his fourth goal in three games, Quinn Preston (7) extended the Kalamazoo lead with a top-shelf snipe just inside the right bar. Off the breakaway, Zach Okabe (10) found a driving Lee (5) who dished the puck behind him to Preston entering the slot to bring the lead to two at the 11:37 mark of the second.
Rookie forward Colson Gengenbach (1) continued the K-Wings’ offensive onslaught by sending a one-time rocket in the top twine from the top of the crease for his first career goal at the 13:43 mark of the second. On the goal, Cam Knuble (2) collected a loose puck at the offensive zone blue line and striped a pass to Okabe (11) for a tic-tac-toe score with Gengenbach.
Unfortunately, Bloomington responded with three straight goals to tie the game. One with 15 seconds left in the second frame, and two more at the 2:08 and 9:58 (PPG) marks of the third period to even the score at four.
After a scoreless overtime period, the Bison won the game with the shootout’s only goal in the third round.
The K-Wings penalty kill was 3-for-4 in the contest, and Jonathan Lemieux (2-4-1-1) made 31 saves in the rubber match.
Kalamazoo now heads to Cincinnati for a 7:35 p.m.EST matchup Friday at Heritage Bank Center.