The Rochester Junior Americans kept their season alive with an overtime win over the Maine Nordiques on Friday night.
The expansion team defeated the Nordiques 2-1 in the third game of the North American Hockey League East semifinals in Rochester, New York.
Four minutes and 19 seconds into the first overtime period, Jacon Roberson set the stage and Clay O'Donnell scored the winning goal.
The game started with a turnover on the Nordiques' offensive opportunity.
“We had a chance to score a goal. Evan Orlov went down and they scored 2-1,” said Maine Nordiques coach Nick Skerik. “There was no one around (Orlov) and he had a chance to win the game with his stick and he punctured the tire. Instead, it was our goal.”
Skerik said the Nordiques had two more chances in overtime and that Jake Bernadette had a chance before the turnover. Nick Bernardo took a shot from the point, but it deflected and missed the goal.
Maine, which leads the series 2-1, will look to conclude the best-of-five series Saturday at 6 p.m. at the Rochester Ice Center in Rochester, New York.
“If we can find a way to win Game 4 tomorrow, this will be a really good learning experience for us if we have a chance to advance to the next round,” Skerik said. “Well, it's time to go. We only have two games left in the series to come back to, instead of three.”
It was a battle for goals, and American goalie Danique Leroux made 26 saves in the win. However, Skerik was not satisfied with the Nordiques' shot selection against Leroux.
“I think we had 27 shots on net, and 24 of them were ground balls to the goalie,” Skerik said. “We played well defensively and all 12 of our forwards played well defensively, so credit to them. I felt like our forwards were convincing defensively, but offensively tonight. I didn't have that killer instinct.”
Carter Richardson, making his third start in the series for the Nordiques, stopped 37 shots.
Coach Skerik said Richardson has been great and will likely be the starter Saturday.
Maine went 0-for-2 on the power play, and Rochester went 0-for-3.
Laurent Trepanier, a member of Maine's fourth line, scored the first goal in the first minute of the third period. This was his first postseason goal.
“The fourth line is required to shut down the opposing team's top line and score goals,” said Coach Skerik. “At that time, I looked at the other nine forwards on the bench and felt only three of them were ready to go to playoff hockey.”
It was one of only five shots the Nordiques made in the third period.
Rochester tied the score midway through the third period with Tyler Procious finding the back of the net and assists from Matteo Dicipio and Massimo Gentile.
Nordiques forward Ryan Panico was injured just before the goal.
“Ryan Panico took the puck in the face and couldn't get past it,” Skerik said. “He went down bleeding on the ice and just went down. We never touched the puck to keep the ball. So they ended up scoring with it. If not for that incident where the puck hit Ryan Panico in the face, we would have gone home as 1-0 winners tonight.
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