NORTH CHARLESTON, SC – One year ago, the South Carolina Stingrays came within one victory of taking home the ECHL’s Kelly Cup. Along the way, they learned many lessons about how to win and more importantly how to survive. Tuesday night those skills and a few others helped the Stingrays live to play another day.
Stephan Vigier scored two goals, Kelly Zajac collected three assists and goalie Mark Dekanich came within one shot of being perfect as South Carolina downed the Adirondack Thunder 4-1 in front of an announced crowd of 3,066 at the North Charleston Coliseum. With the victory, the Stingrays evened the best-of-seven Eastern conference semifinal series at three wins apiece, setting up what should be an epic winner-take-all game seven Wednesday night.
As if a game seven would need any more tension, Tuesday’s contest finished with the teams combining for 120 minutes in penalties, most of them coming in the final seventy seconds of play. In that final 1:10, no less than five fights broke out as well as Adirondack’s Terrence Wallin being tagged with a match penalty for a hit to the head of South Carolina’s Jared Staal.
Coming into the game needing a win to stay alive, the Stingrays wanted to get back to their game plan of starting fast and keeping the gas pedal to the floor. They were able to get a jump on the Thunder, putting pressure on netminder Ken Appleby early, forcing the Adirondack netminder to come up big with a save on Joe Devin on an odd-man rush and kicking the rebound just out of the reach of Zajac.
South Carolina’s effort led to the game’s opening goal 6:48 into the first period. Zajac took an offensive zone face-off and won it cleanly. Devin was positioned perfectly to step into a shot that whistled past Appleby’s blocker glove for Devin’s eighth goal of the playoffs.
Six minutes later, the Stingrays power play – which had been a factor in only one of the first five games – sprang to life. Spencer Humphries got control of the puck and found Zajac with a pass. Zajac then sent it toward the net where Vigier got his stick on the disc and tipped it home for his third post-season score. It was also the Stingrays first man-advantage tally since game four when they scored three, the last by Vigier.
Dekanich, who was celebrating his 30th birthday on Tuesday, saw very little rubber until the back half of the opening frame. It took Adirondack almost the entire period to get eight shots on net but that final one, which came off the stick of Mathieu Brodeur during a two-man advantage, found the back of the net with twelve seconds left to cut South Carolina’s lead to 2-1 at the intermission.
Brodeur’s second power play goal of the series gave the Thunder life heading into the second period and with carry over advantage time could have been the catalyst to a comeback. South Carolina’s penalty killers were up to the challenge and kept Adirondack off the board.
The Thunder thought they had tied the game at the 8:21 mark when the puck eluded Dekanich. The joy was short-lived as Wallin was called for hooking on the play, negating the score and putting the Stingrays on the power play. Austin Fyten made Adirondack pay when he one-timed a pass from Bobby Shea into the back of the net for his fourth post-season goal to restore South Carolina’s two-goal lead.
The visitors got into trouble again with a little over five minutes to go in the middle stanza when Ryan Lomberg and Mitchell Heard were tagged for minor penalties that created a two-man advantage for South Carolina. It took less than a minute for the home team to capitalize when Zajac again set up Vigier who went top corner just under the crossbar from in close for his second of the game and fourth of the playoffs.
While his teammates were keeping Appleby busy, Dekanich was patiently waiting to be asked to make a save. It took Adirondack more than sixteen minutes to register its first shot of the period and added just one more for a total of two in the frame, both of which the veteran goalie handled.
Assisted by two early power plays, the Thunder pressed the Stingrays looking to get back into the game in the third. Dekanich (18 saves) continued to be rock solid, keeping Adirondack at bay.
Following a lengthy delay to fix a broken pane of plexiglass midway through the period, the teams battled along with numerous penalties breaking up the flow of the game. The building frustration of the Thunder spilled over when Lomberg got under the skin of Trevor Gillies and the two squared off. Eight seconds after Gillies and Lomberg went off, Adirondack’s Heard and the Stingrays’ Humphries rang the bell for round two.
Tempers flared again seconds later when South Carolina’s Shea and the Thunder’s Dana Fraser dropped the gloves before a twin bill of Vigier versus Gunnar Hughes and Adirondack’s Luke Curadi and the Stingrays’ Marcus Perrier broke out. While fights four and five were going on, the Thunder’s Ben Johnson and the Stingrays’ Joey Leach locked up, earning each a continuing altercation misconduct.
Then with eleven seconds to go, Wallin clocked Staal and was given a match penalty. Two other matching minors were tagged on, leaving four skaters and two reserves on the South Carolina bench while Adirondack finished with just three reserve skaters and four on the ice.
Appleby finished the game with 26 saves on 30 shots faced in suffering his third loss of the series. South Carolina went 3-for-6 on the power play to bring its series total to 4-for-22 while Adirondack was 1-for-8 with the man advantage in the contest and is now 2-for-29 in the series.
Contact the author at Don.money@prohockeynews.com
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