DANBURY – The Johnstown Tomahawks (16-13-6) defeated the Danbury Hat Tricks (15-17-4) by a score of 6-5 in a thriller on Friday, January 9th in Danbury, Connecticut. The Tomahawks allowed three goals in the first period and put themselves in quite the hole to begin Friday’s all-important East Division showdown. Hawks rookie goaltender Nikita Oleksiienko did a great job of bouncing back after the opening frame, allowing his team the ability to battle back into the game. Sean Leetch recorded the first two Tomahawks goals and Kalib Capecci scored with 17 seconds left in the second period tying the game at 3-3. Charlie Zetterkvist and Nick Jarmain (2) were the other goal scorers for the Tomahawks. Jon Dukaric made the back-to-back starts for the Hat Tricks in less than a 20-hour span and was sharp early but seemed to ware down upon continuous Tomahawks offensive pressure. Oleksiienko recorded another big win for the Tomahawks, turning aside 21 of the 26 Danbury shots.
After last night’s disappointing result, the Tomahawks dealt with probably the worst case scenario to begin Friday afternoon’s matinee showdown, giving up three goals on just their first 7 shots faced. Friday’s game came bearing heavy stakes around the 6th place spot in the East, as before yesterday’s result, Danbury was just four points back of the Hawks meaning that a regulation win would push themselves into a tie for 6th. Shots on goal after a disastrous first period were in favor of Danbury at 13-10.
Coach Houli must have really struck a nerve within his group coming out of the first break as just 1:28 into the period, Sean Leetch scored to get the Hawks on the board and with still more than half the game to play, got them right back into the thick of things. The goal was a deflection off of a point-shot from Kalib Capecci and the secondary assist was credited to Nick Metelkin. Nearly 15-minutes later, viewers experienced some deja vu as it was once again Sean Leetch deflecting another Capecci point shot, to make it a one-shot game all of a sudden with more than 20-minutes to play. Nick Jarmain was credited the secondary assist. In a complete and utter script-flipping moment, Kalib Capecci and Sean Leetch capped off individual three-point periods as Capecci worked his way down to the offensive slot and sniped one over the glove of Dukaric to tie the game at 3-3 with just 17 seconds to play. Shots on goal after the 2nd period flipped heavily in the Hawks’ favor at 21-16 after registering 11 in the period to Danbury’s three.
The third period began and after grabbing back all of the momentum in the second period, the Tomahawks allowed the Hat Tricks to take the lead right back just five-minutes into the period. Responding well again, it was Charlie Zetterkvist scoring yet another tying goal for the Tomahawks after a pretty pass from Jack Genovese in tight. Taking advantage of the tying goal, Nick Jarmain was able to find the back of the net giving the Hawks their first lead of the day with just over half the period left to play. Sean Morgan and Kalib Capecci recorded the assists on the goal. After finally seeming to find the type of game they wanted to play, over 50 minutes in, the Hawks let the Hat Tricks come right back with a tying goal of their own with just under six-minutes to play making it 5-5. The goal was Danbury forward Matt Shpungin’s hat-trick goal marking his first NAHL hat. The 10-goal shootout wasn’t enough to solve this one through 60-minutes as we were headed to overtime. It was an extremely important point for both sides but the team who grabbed the extra, was going to reap the benefits, given the 2-points of separation. For three-on-three standards, the overtime was relatively slower paced but still both goaltenders were tested on multiple odd-man rushes, along with some great sticks by defenders. However, with just 32 seconds remaining, it was the Hawks’ leadership group combining for the overtime winning goal as assistant captain Jack Genovese forced a neutral zone turnover and fed the captain Nick Jarmain for a mini-breakaway bid that squeaked its way through the five hole of Dukaric and completed the improbable comeback for the Tomahawks 6-5 in OT. Final shots on goal for the contest were in favor of Johnstown for the second night in a row at 30-26.