For the first time this season, Columbus will play Delaware in a series of three games over the weekend. The Thunder are rolling on a two-game winning streak along with their first series sweep. The Dragons are coming off of two weekends away with interesting games versus Danbury and Carolina. The question is, can the Thunder keep rolling their win streak versus the league leading Dragons?
The dragons were the first to strike in the game at 5:10 with Daae getting a pass and hitting the back of the net. That was the only goal in the first period which made for a quiet period. This made things interesting as the league leading dragons aren’t running up a lot of goals on the team with the worst record in the league.
The second period started off with more tempo from the dragons. Pietrantonio slapped the puck into thunder’s net at 26 seconds into the second period. The thunder’s Milushkin would respond with a goal at the 1:19 mark into the second period. Dragons would put up another goal with Kelly shooting one in at the 13:59 mark of the period. Thunder would respond again with another goal at the 14:41 mark with Gafarov getting past the line.
The third period would be low scoring, but interesting period of hockey game play from both teams. It took over half of the period before either team found the back of the net. The thunder’s Wilson got one in at the 13:00 mark to tie of the game at three. The period wouldn’t get another goal in regulation.
The game would go into overtime with a three on three for a five minute. Each team would take turns holding the puck for a long period of time. Five minutes ended up passing with neither team scoring which forced a shootout. Thunder tried their luck first but were refused. The dragons didn’t fare much better as they were denied as well. The second attempts also ended up with both scorers having their shots blocked. This came down to a very crucial third attempt for both teams. Thunder and dragons were once again denied their shots. This would force a sudden death situation. The Thunder were the first to go again in this shootout. Gafarov would manage to navigate his way past the tender into the net. The dragons would have to make this goal to continue the sudden death. The goal tender would make himself big enough to block the dragon’s shot.
The Delaware Thunder have now won three games in a row with one of those coming from the league leaders. The goal tender for the thunder managed to block 51 of 54 shots with just regulation and overtime play. The thunder and dragons will play Saturday and Sunday this weekend. It will be a lot more of an interesting weekend than most everyone anticipated.
PHOTO CREDIT: Toni.Hill@prohockeynews.com
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