They equaled that total Saturday, defeating the Roanoke Rail Yard Dawgs in an exciting 4-3 overtime win in front of 2,013 at the Columbus Civic Center.
Forward Evan Neugold was the overtime hero, burying the game-winning goal past Roanoke goaltender Ryan de Melo with 50 seconds left in the extra session.
Neugold redeemed himself after missing a chance earlier in the 3-on-3 extra time.
“I had that half-breakaway before that chance, and I ripped it wide and high. Jags (Cottonmouths goaltender Brandon Jaeger) made a huge save, and they were all down there, I got the puck, and we just went. I gave it to Petr (Senkerik), kind of an early pass, and he held it perfectly, sauced it to me back door, and I just put it in.”
“Coming into the season, we knew Petr was going to be an offensive threat, coming from Europe where they play an offensive game,” Neugold said. “That’s what he brings to the table, and it’s awesome that he’s doing it.”
Most players enjoy the 3-on-3, five-minute overtime session, created to try and decide the game before going into a best-of-five shootout. The amount of open ice, with two fewer players on the ice on each side than in regulation, allows for more plays and more back-and-forth action. Odd-man rushes are prevalent.
“You can tell it’s my style of hockey,” Neugold said. “I love skilled play, and 3-on-3 is the perfect game for me. You‘ve got a lot of room out there to make creative plays, and when you finish, it’s exciting.”
Columbus attacked the Rail Yard Dawgs from the opening faceoff with a sustained offensive attack in the Roanoke zone in the beginning of the game. It was a refreshing change of pace from recent home games in which the visiting team dictated the pace.
“We decided as a team to go back to basics, getting our work level and compete level up,” Neugold said. “We’ve had games where we played 20 or 40 minutes, but never the full 60. It’s what we’ve been working on: relentless pressure on the forecheck and just being hounds on the backcheck.”
“Our gameplan was it was (Roanoke’s) third game in three nights,” Columbus head coach Jerome Bechard said. “They drove nine hours to get here and got here at 8 in the morning; it’s just our second game and we drove five hours (from Knoxville), so we should be better. I told the guys the game plan the first 10 minutes was get over the red line, dump it in, and forecheck. We wanted to send a message that we wanted to win the game in the first 10 minutes. We had a couple of good opportunities, but their goalie played well.”
Matching their goal output on Saturday from the past five games was also a shot in the arm for the Snakes.
“About time, first of all,” Neugold said. “That’s what you need if you want to be a successful team and move up the standings. It’s good we’re getting that going, starting to score goals.”
“It just goes to show that we have guys who can put the puck in the net,” Bechard said. “We hit a couple of posts and hit the glass about 10 times on 2-on-1s. We should have had 6 or 7 goals. We still need guys to bear down on opportunities.”
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