BILOXI, Miss. – For much of the season, the offense of the Mississippi Surge was high powered from start to finish. Friday night, it took a little longer to get the generators going but in the end the lights were just as bright. Paced by Matthew Larke’s two goals and a three-point night by Matt Zultek, the Surge opened with a 5-2 victory in Game 1 of their best-of-five series against the Columbus Cottonmouths at the Mississippi Coast Coliseum. There is no time to savor the win as both teams jumped on their busses for the ride to Columbus for Game 2 Saturday afternoon at the Columbus Civic Center. “We started off slow. I thought we had a lot of kids that were nervous. I thought we had a lot of kids who didn’t know what to expect from playing a pro playoff game,” Mississippi coach Steffon Walby said. “They (Columbus) came out and really dominated in the first period but Bill Zaniboni stood on his head and kept us in there. Then once we got a chance to regroup between periods, then we came out and started to play Surge hockey and had a couple of good bounces come our way.” Prior to the opener, Columbus coach Jerome Bechard had said that he would be OK with hard hitting but not with “dumb” penalties. Captain Craig Stahl started the hitting by blasting Mississippi defenseman Jack Wolgemuth behind the Surge net. After some discussion, referee Boone Bruggman rang Stahl up for a five minute boarding major. It could have been very bad for the Cottonmouths but the penalty killing, which was good all year, allowed just one shot on goalie Ian Vigier. Obviously upset by the power play failure, Mississippi turned up the heat and it paid off at the 8:07 mark. Columbus turned the puck over in its own zone to Surge forward Chris Greene. Greene fed Matt Zultek who busted in on Vigier. The initial save was made but Jeff Grant was on the doorstep to cash in the rebound to put the Surge in front. The Cottonmouths got that one back at 11:06 thanks to their power play. Kyle Lundale fed rookie Jesse Cole who funneled the puck to fellow rookie Levi Lind. As he did so many times during the season, he found the back of the net behind Zaniboni to even the score. It stayed that way through the end of the stanza. The momentum swung back to the Surge just seconds into the second. With Columbus on a power play, Matthew Larke made a brilliant stick steal and broke in alone on Vigier. Larke made a move and beat Vigier for the short-handed tally with the period a mere 12 seconds old. “He (Larke) made a good read. That came from hours of video, knowing tendencies, being heads up, all good habits, sticks on the ice, that type of thing,” Walby said. “It changed the momentum (of the game).” The game began to open up but both Vigier and Zaniboni were equal to the task, especially the Columbus net minder who stopped Richard twice and Zultek in one sequence. It would only be a momentary roadblock as at the 5:44 mark, Grant and Richard got the puck to Zultek below the Columbus goal line. The crafty forward quickly made a wrap-around move and beat Vigier to the post to score. Mississippi seemed content at the start of the third to ride its effort from the first two periods. Columbus began to get more and more aggressive, trying to fire as many shots as they could at Zaniboni. Occasionally the Surge allowed odd-man rushes but the Cottonmouths couldn’t make any of them pay off. Finally, Mississippi’s Ryan Bartle took a penalty that turned into the visitor’s big break. After getting several shots away and with the power play time running out. Tyler Johnson and Lundale combined to set up Orrin Hergott who scored to cut the lead to 3-2. Moments later, Tim Green was sent in on a partial breakaway but Zaniboni out dueled the shooter to maintain the one goal margin. The Zaniboni save on Green and two others he made thereafter were the signal that the offense needed to kick back in. Once again it was Zultek who went to work, leading a three-on-two break with Green and defenseman Nick Klaren. Zultek fed Greene who in turn put the puck on Klaren’s stick and the blue liner didn’t miss, making it 4-2. Just over a minute and a half later, Columbus looked like it had cleared the puck out of its defensive zone. Tim Velemirovich ended up with it and as the defense stopped expecting a whistle, he sent it to Shane Wagner who looked up and saw Larke all alone in front of the net. Wagner got it to Larke who potted his second goal of the game, effectively ending Columbus’ hopes of stealing the opener. Game notes: Zaniboni finished the game with 36 saves while his counterpart Vigier stopped 22…Announced attendance for the first playoff game in Biloxi was 2,630…Internet issues between Biloxi and Atlanta kept the B2 video feed of the game from being seen but the radio broadcasts went off without a hitch…Game 2 is scheduled for 5 pm at the Columbus Civic Center on Saturday. Game 3 is set for Thursday, April 8 in Columbus. Contact the author at don.money@prohockeynews.com
You must be logged in to post a comment.