The Brock Wild continued our 3 game home stand Thursday
night against the Durham Crusaders.
In the first period Durham came out strong and kept the Wild deep in their own end. Just one minute in they would jam a puck in behind Parry in the Wild net to take an early 1-0 lead. The Crusaders kept coming and would add another a couple minutes later with a high shot over the head of Parry and the Crusaders took a 2-0 lead.
But in the second half of the period it was the Wild’s turn to put on the pressure. The Wild increased their intensity and it paid off big time with 2 quick goals in the final minute to tie the game at 2. John Malcolm would get the first one from in the front of the net with assists to Mason Stewart and Rhys Benge on some very nice fore-checking and passing. Kaiden Smith would get the second one with a laser into the bottom corner of the net.
The second period was back and forth with both goalies exchanging big saves before the Crusaders would strike again on a breakaway 4 minutes in to regain the lead.
But the Wild would fight back again. John Malcolm would add his second of the game just seconds later on a great end to end to end rush to once again tie the game at 3.
Just 1 minute later the Wild would strike again. This time it was Bradley Pearce picking up a pass from Borden Davidson and firing a shot past the Durham net-minder as the Wild would take the lead 4-3! Colin Lynch also picked up an assist on a great clearing pass up to Borden.
But late in the period the Crusaders mounted yet another furious attack to add 2 more quick goals in the final minute to regain the 1 goal lead heading into the 3rd.
Not to worry though as the Wild would not go down that easily. After the 5th Durham goal, Bradley Pearce says “don’t worry coach, I’ll just go and score another one!”.
In the 3rd period the Crusaders continued their attack and tried to put the game away but Parry would have none of it making several nice saves to keep the Durham lead to one.
Half way through the period, the Wild would strike. Mason Stewart made a great play to strip the puck off of the Durham defender at the Wild blue line and fought off 2 Crusader defenders to score a beauty to tie the game at 5-5.
Sadly, on the next shift Borden Davidson would go down with a lower body injury as he would collide with a Durham defender as they battled hard for the puck. Unfortunately, he was unable to finish the game. We all hope he will return to the Wild line-up real soon.
Bradley Pearce would take his spot on the wing and on the very next shift, (true to his promise from period 2), he went on a mission and delivered with just 4 minutes to go, taking the puck off of a Crusader defender and then burying his own rebound past the Durham net-minder and the Wild were once again in the lead 6-5!
The Wild almost had the insurance marker a couple minutes later when Malcolm took off on a clear breakaway but was robbed by an amazing stop by the Durham goaltender.
Then late in the period, the Wild would be penalized and would have to kill off a power play with less than 4 minutes to go.
Missing 2 of our key players the Wild fought hard to kill off the penalty but just could not hold off the Crusaders attack as they would find a way to get the puck past Parry and once again we were tied with 3 minutes to go.
The final 3 minutes were intense as the Durham squad had several quality scoring chances but were denied by our strong defense and solid goaltending. The Wild had a few nice chances as well but the Durham goalie made some nice saves to keep the game tied.
With just 2.3 seconds left on the clock the Crusaders broke loose on a breakaway by their best forward who had already had 3 on the night but this time was denied by Parry who made a terrific game-saving stop as the Wild would earn its first point of the season with 6-6 tie!
Our defense consisting of Camden Slama, Colin Lynch, Rhys Benge and John Malcolm were fearless with their checking all game long and did an excellent job especially late in the game of blocking shots and stopping the Durham forwards.
Our forwards were equally impressive at both ends of the rink. In addition to our goal scorers, Kael Cresanto, Nathan Giles, Ethan Kirkos, Borden Davidson, Karsyn Payne, and Blake Brock all had terrific games back checking hard and working hard in the offensive zone to create several scoring chances.
Fantastic effort by everyone! Needless to say we are very proud!
Next up is the Millbrook Stars White team on Saturday at 1:00pm in Sunderland. Blake Brock will get the start in Goal. The Wild look to avenge their opening 11-5 loss to there earlier this season.
The Wild hope to have Borden back in the line-up. Let’s all hope that he is feeling better.
See you all tomorrow!
Also a quick reminder that there is a practice on Sunday at 5:00 in Beaverton. It is a 1.5 hour practice for those who can make it.