One night after one of their worst defensive performances of the season, the Fort Wayne Komets came back with a much stronger effort. The Komets protected a one-goal lead for 33 minutes Wednesday night in a 3-2 win at Dayton.
``We played really well defensively tonight,'' Komets coach Al Sims said. ``We we really focused again our our defense and we completely shut them down in the third period.''
After the Gems beat the Komets 6-4 in Fort Wayne on Tuesday night, the Komets scored first last night when David Hukalo notched a power-play goal late in the first period. The Komets pushed the margin to 2-0 early in the second period on a goal by Kevin Bertram. Then the Gems rallied, tying the score on goals by Jonathon Ornelas and Dan Lapointe. Fort Wayne took a 3-2 lead into the third period on Frankie DeAngelis's fourth goal of the season.
Then the defense took over, out-shooting the Gems 9-6 in the third period to finish with a 43-28 advantage for the game. Goaltender Nick Boucher made 26 saves in his seventh consecutive start. He had lost two games in a row, giving up 10 goals.
``Bouch really needed a game like this to get himself back on track," Sims said. ``Everybody played very well.''
The Komets continued to play without leading scorer Colin Chaulk who missed his second game in a row to attend a family funeral in Toronto. It was also the Komets' fourth game in five nights and a loss would have allowed the Gems to move past Fort Wayne into fourth place in the International Hockey League standings.
Instead, the Komets can climb past Bloomington and into third place with a win at Memorial Coliseum tonight over the PrairieThunder. Forward Rick Varone will come off injured reserve tonight, and goaltender Tim Haun will make his first start after finishing off his seven-game suspension.
The Komets are 16-11-1 on the season and 5-6-1 in December. Hukalo is heating up offensively with nine points in his last 11 games, and Shafranov has six points in his last six games.The Komets are 36-13-3 all-time on New Year's Eve and have won their last seven in a row.
Bloomington at Komets
Faceoff: 7:30 p.m.
Radio: WOWO, 1190-AM
Comments
Any mention of what roster move they will make with Varone coming back?? I am sure it has already been decided but curious
One other thing,, on the PP tonight he had Huck back on the Point instead of PC. I know PC has a heck of a shot but I have noticed he can be a little of a liability back there if a team does get a break out of the zone. Hucks goal was him sneaking in from the point , backdoor goal.
And two out of the three goals were scored by DENFENSEMEN. Yep, Bert scored. So we need to really make some roster moves. They play terrible defense right? So let's take a deep breath and see how they do tonight.
We need to kick bloomington in the teeth, Skalde is a sissy, that whole team is a bunch of cake eaters, take it to them and they'll curl up like a little baby and cry like their coach. Get the stop whining track ready!
Schebig, tell Welker he can call 4 minors, anymore than that he's not allowed back, its new years eve, in and out let's get er done in 2 hours.
Burgee-Come on down you can tell him yourself. Mr. "personality" he is not.
I don't mind if he calls lots of penalties, so long as they are all on the other team! :D Good job tonight. Now let's keep it going and do even better tomorrow!
I hope he calls only the fighting penalties/bloomy 9-3 win=mightbite prediction,4 fights/HAPPY NEW YEARS TO ALL
komets are fine we are all spoiled with two championships in a row all should prepare themselves, we might not finish in first place this year! maybe the team is doing a colt and resting till playoffs!
do u guys think that when mitch comes back he will be a influence to this team. meaning will he help them in the long run?
I think he could be a very positive influence in regards to attititude, sure. But at the same time, this is a team sport. If one upbeat person comes into a down-in-the-mouth group, it might help bring everyone up, but more likely the group will bring that person down. Just one more reason why adding new players doesn't neccesarily work wonders for a team.
oh i understand, but do u think he will be the same or will it take time for him to get back into it?
I think it will take him a while, but knowing Mitch, he'll find ways to contribute.
i think he will show the guys how to step it up by checking and crashing the net. dont have to fight to show an element of toughness. in todays sissyfied hockey where guys dont like to be checked or even like to check, throwing a check sometimes gets a guy off his game like an old time fight use to. mitch will bring an attitude and a toughness the team needs.
Well said Chuckitt. Great post.
i do agree hockey has become a little more sissy.