Selkirk finally broke the dominance, the Oil Capitals have had over the Steelers at home in Virden in route to a 4-3 OT win at the Tundra on Thursday night.
The 1st period saw a lot of end to end action, but true to form, both Bennett and Dosch were solid in the “pipes” for their respective teams as they have been all series. But the story of the period, was that of Virden’s goaltender Dalton Dosch, whom had to leave the game at the 16:40 mark of the 1st with a lower body injury. Rookie goaltender, Oak Lake product, Riley Wallace replaced Dosch and filled in admirably for the remainder of the game.
The 2nd period seen each team get a goal each. Kolten Kanaski, with his 5th of the playoffs shorthanded on a breakaway, put the home side up mid-way through the period. Nate Halvorson, with his 2nd of the playoffs would notch the game back up at 1 a few minutes thereafter.
Play opened up in the 3rd period as each team would score two goals. Virden would retake the lead in the 3rd at the 8:40 mark with Ben Dalke getting his 1st of the playoffs with Kanaski getting the helper. Not to be outdone, Selkirk would get an unusual goal; off the faceoff, Nolan Ferguson sent a point shot off the back boards, which careened off Wallace and into the net at the 9:47 mark. Again the home town team would take the lead when Hunter Cloutier scored a “beauty” on the PP at the 17:23 mark, which the Oil Capitals was hoping would stand up to be the winner. Selkikr, being resilient, tied it up just as Bennett left the net for the extra attacker. Ryan Piwniuk’s “seeing eye” puck would allude Wallace, tying the game up once again at 3, setting the stage for OT for the second time this series.
This time, OT was rather short lived. Half way through the 10 minute extra frame, Will Middleton scored off the wing for his 1st of the series, assisted by Carter Barley, to lead Selkirk to a 4-3 victory and tying the series up at 2.
Oil Capital’s Dalton Dosch stopped all 6 shots he faced his way in the 1st period, before being replaced by Riley Wallace. (Dosch will be revaluated today). Wallace stopped 23 of 27 in the hard luck loss. Selkirk’s, Zachary Bennett made 38 saves in the 4-3 victory and was solid in keeping the Steelers in the game.
Oil Capitals Assistant Coach, Tyson Ramsey had some thoughts on the game: “I thought it was a real good effort by our group. We were structured and stuck to that plan for 60+ minutes. When you get in to OT anything can happen and we saw it go our way in game 1 and it went their way tonight but we liked large parts of our game. If there was one thing, we maybe could have done a little better; direct a few more pucks on goal and be a little harder at their net. We’ll have a day to regroup here and get ready for a big one on Saturday but we like our group right now.”
Oil Caps Tid Bits: Blake Sidoni had 2 assists in his first game back after serving a 2 game suspension. Logan Rands, day to day with UBI. Austin Johnston, day to day with UBI. Parker Brakebill didn’t dress. Oil Capitals dressed 13 forwards and 5 defence on the evening.