Special teams give Surge boost

COLUMBUS , Ga.  – In the playoffs, special teams can make or break a team’s success. Whether it is scoring on the power play or killing a penalty, performing the task can be the defining measure of winning or losing. Thursday night, Mississippi’s power play whiz Matt Zultek scored the go-ahead goal on a rarely called double penalty as the Surge defeated the Columbus Cottonmouths 4-2 in Game 3 of their best-of-five series at the Columbus Civic Center. The victory put Mississippi one win away from advancing to the SPHL President’s Cup finals with Game 4 set for Friday night at the Mississippi Coast Coliseum. If necessary, Game 5 is scheduled for Saturday also in Biloxi. Zultek’s goal came during a five-on-three man advantage called by referee Geoffrey Miller with 9:06 left in regulation and the score knotted at 2-2. He sent Columbus’ Kyle Lundale off for boarding and at the same time whistled Cottonmouths’ forward Dan Leslie for hooking to set up the two-man advantage. Columbus goalie Ian Vigier held the fort as long as he could before Michael Richard and Steve Weidlich combined to set up Zultek for the tally that broke the tie for good. “I haven’t seen it a lot (the double call) but I was quite surprised because the guy cross-checked him behind the net then out of the corner of the eye you saw the big two-handed tomahawk. I was impressed that the ref saw it and impressed that he called the infraction at that time of the game,” Mississippi coach Steffon Walby said. “We made some changes. We put Zultek on the point instead of in front of the net and it really threw them ( Columbus) out of whack. The big guy just shot the puck from up there and before you know it, he had an open look right in front of the net and he buried it.” Mississippi got a huge lift prior to the game when injured defenseman (and SPHL Defenseman of the Year) Weidlich was declared fit enough to play. Considering that it was exactly two weeks ago to the day that Weidlich’s neck was sliced by a skate blade made the return a major story line as well as an emotional kick for the Surge. “It’s like that movie “Stripes” when they call Sergeant Hulka “the big toe”. We refer to Weids as our big toe,” Walby said. “It’s tough to walk but it makes it easier when the big toe is back in the lineup.” The first period was a classic goalie’s duel between Vigier and Mississippi net minder Bill Zaniboni. The two went back and forth, playing a game of can you top this. First Vigier stoned Zultek on a shot that sent the goalie’s mask flying. Then Zaniboni robbed Daryl Moore and Leslie on back-to-back shots. Along the way, Mississippi’s Tom Boudreau sold out to block a shot and paid a price as the puck caught him near the face as he laid out along the ice. The blood would turn out to be symbolic of just how much each team wanted this contest. Neither goalie blinked and the teams headed to the locker rooms scoreless after one. “Throughout the whole game, Ian played phenomenal. He kept us in the game,” Columbus coach Jerome Bechard said. “Obviously they had plenty of opportunities throughout the whole game but he stood tall and gave us an opportunity to be in the game for the entire game.” The Cottonmouths broke the ice on the scoreboard in the first minute of the second. Captain Craig Stahl, playing in front of the home fans for possibly the final time, set up longtime teammate Orrin Hergott just 24 seconds in to give Columbus the lead. It would be short-lived however as Mississippi struck right back when Jack Wolgemuth assisted on Tim Velemirovich’s tally at the 53 second mark, tying the game at one. The teams continued to battle hard, even coming to blows when the Surge’s Glen Cacaro and the Cottonmouths’s Will Barlow went at it, drawing fighting majors as well as secondary fight game misconducts. Then with 3:15 left in the stanza, Velemirovich and Chris Ferazzoli combined to set up former Columbus winger Daryl Moor who bite his former team with a goal that allowed Mississippi to take a 2-1 lead into the final period. Down one, Columbus opened up the third quickly looking for the equalizer and they got it. At the 3:41 mark, Stahl fed Hergott who raced in and got a shot on Zaniboni. The puck came loose in a scramble off of the rebound and Stahl poked it home to even the score. “Craig, Orrin and Brent Clarke are playing phenomenally. They scored a huge goal,” Bechard said. “Was it a pretty goal? No it wasn’t. It was a rebound at the side of the net and he (Stahl) was at the right place at the right time. At that point we were in the game and we had given ourselves an opportunity (to win).” The two squads went back and forth, each looking for that one break, the one chink in the armor that would create the lead goal. Then came the twin calls by Miller that set in motion what would be the game-winning goal by Zultek. “I think I’d like to have a look at the initial play on the whole play before the Lundale hit. I thought it was offside. They missed that call and then I guess the boarding penalty – I don’t even know what they called on Lundale,” Bechard said. “It’s a tough pill to swallow. At the end of the day, we executed our game plan but you can’t give the number one power play in the league that much because they finally got going.” Just under two minutes later, while the teams were skating four-on-four, Matthew Larke sent Nick Klaren in on a break into the Columbus end. Hoe wound up and blasted the puck past Vigier for what would be the final goal of the night. Try as they might, the Cottonmouths were not able to score again on Zaniboni, who shut the door on the home team. So now Mississippi has two shots at home to win one game to advance. Walby said that he and his team had talked about “We talked about it during the week. I said that if we came up here and won, the next game would be that much harder to win,” he said. “We’re focused again. The adjustments that were made worked. The guys now can see the light that it doesn’t look like you have to win six periods. Now you’ve just got to win three periods in five minute segments in each period.” On the other side of the ice, Columbus’ Bechard knows his team hasn’t done well away from home this year but feels that this may be the time. “We haven’t won on the road all year and we know that. There’s no question about that but we’re definitely due,” Bechard said. “We had to win one there no matter what. Now we have to win two there, which is no big deal. If we had won tonight, we’d have two cracks at it. The pressure is still on them to close us out. The toughest game to win is the clincher. We know we need to continue doing the same things, keep playing the same way and we’ll get our opportunities.“ Game notes…Tom Boudreau did not return to the game after blocking the shot in the first period. He will be evaluated when the team returns to Biloxi and a decision on his status for Game 3 will be made then…For the record, Mississippi was 1-for-7 on the power play in the game while Columbus was 0-for-5…Zaniboni stopped 25 of the 27 shots he faced to earn the win while Vigier blocked 35 of the 39 sent his way…Attendance for the game was listed as 2,126. Contact the author at don.money@prohockeynews.com