Indiana Ice to win in overtime
By Romy Schwaiger
Friday night, he was able to keep his goal clear. He made 32 saves and had his third shutout this season. On Saturday, five pucks made the way into the goal behind 18-year-old Jon Gillies, who will be the highest rated US-born goalkeeper for the upcoming NHL draft. But, the Indiana Ice still won, 6-5 in overtime against the Muskegon Lumberjacks.
Until minute 16, it seemed as if the game would be one of the quiet ones, one that gets decided by some last minute goals in the last third. But then, the 4,600 spectators at the Pepsi Coliseum saw three goals in 40 seconds.
With 16:04 on the clock, the Lumberjacks went up front 1-0, the first power play goal of the night. But the lead didn’t last long, just 21 seconds later, Emil Romig, originally from Vienna, Austria, made his sixth goal of the season.
“Of course I’m happy that I was able to score tonight”, Romig said after the game, “I think that my goal came just at the right time.”
And it took just 19 more seconds, until top-scorer Daniil Tarasov raised the score to 2-1 for the Ice, making his 27th goal of the season. With an assist later in the game, Tarasov successfully defended his second place in league goals, as well as total points (54).
And the goal raining continued at the second third. The Indiana Ice were able to add on the lead as Sean Kuraly scored the first of his two goals after 20:30 minutes.
A 3-1 lead should normally add some safety to the game of the home team, and for nine minutes, it seemed as if the Ice could hold the winning margin. Instead, Muskegon came back. Again. With 31:34 minutes played, Dakota Klecha scored for the Lumberjacks.
The game just kept on going with the same pattern: As soon as the Ice scored, Muskegon needed just some time to come back. The Ice made the 4-2 (32:45 minutes, Kirill Lebedev), Muskegon scored for 4-3.
Lebedev, who used to play for a professional Russian team, made his fourth goal in just his sixth game, after the Indiana Ice picked him up during the season.
“That was really a crazy game”, Romig, who plays for the U20 Austrian national team, said, “especially at the end.
5:49 minutes before the end of the game, Muskegon tied the score for the first time that night. And scorer Ryan Lomberg proved that ice hockey players also watch other professional sports: He paid homage to the NFL quarterback of the Denver Broncos by tebowing on his ice skates.
After 17-year-old Robert Polesello made his 10th goal of the season for the Ice with 2:24 minutes to go in the game, it again took only 23 seconds until the Lumberjacks tied the score for the second time.
With a score of 5-5 after 60 regular minutes, the game went into overtime. And the prevailing pattern remained true: The Muskegon never got to lead the game, so it had to be the Ice to win the game.
Sean Kuraly made his second and probably more important goal of the night, with just 1:20 minute played in overtime, to end the game and secure the second win in a row for the Indiana Ice.
Kuraly, 19, a prospective NHL player, is finishing his last season with the Indiana Ice and will be heading to Miami University (Ohio) this summer, where he committed. He was drafted for the NHL by the San Jose Sharks in the fifth round, No. 133 overall, in June 2011.
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