By Tim Ubels and Nick Ubels – Email
With the departure of goaltender Danny Taylor to the big leagues early Wednesday morning, Barry Brust, whose playing time has been limited as of late, is now the go-to guy until Taylor returns. Unfortunately for Brust, his team came out flat in the later half of their back-to-back series against the Rochester Americans.
The Heat’s undisciplined play during the series finally caught up to them Wednesday evening with a tough 6-2 loss; Abbotsford offered up 17 power-play opportunities over the two games versus Rochester. While the team’s penalty-kill was solid, allowing only one goal on nine opportunities, spending almost a one-third of the game shorthanded made the team sluggish and stifled any offensive momentum.
Americans forward Brian Flynn opened the scoring with his sixteenth goal of year on a one-timer from captain Kevin Porter only moments after the Heat had finished killing a long 5-on-3 Rochester power-play. This resulted in a huge momentum swing in favor of the Americans, which carried over to the rest of the game.
The Heat would respond, however, tying it up with a power-play goal at 15:41 of the first period from Ben Street, who played give-and-go with defenseman Joe Callaghan and walked through the slot area, wiring a wrist shot off the post-and-in to beat Rochester goalie David Leggio blocker side.
The two teams would trade goals once more, with Luke Adam tallying for the Americans and Brady Lamb firing a hard slap shot from the point that beat Leggio cleanly.
After Flynn put his team back up with a power-play marker late in the second period, the Americans began to dominate not only the period, but also the rest of the game. Rochester just kept the goals coming, capping off the night with a pretty tic-tac-toe passing play for their sixth goal of the evening. Mark Mancari, who was the recipient of Kevin Sundher and Porter’s nice passing, smiled in muted celebration with his teammates after ending any hope of a late game Heat rally.
The game took a more physical turn in the third period, as a tired Heat team, desperate for a spark to light a comeback, began throwing some hits, mixing it up after the whistles and chirping at the officials as the game progressed.
Abbotsford outshot Rochester 40-30, keeping Amerks goalie David Leggio on his toes all night for a stand up performance of 38 saves, earning him second star honours. First star went to Leggio’s teammate Brian Flynn, who tallied 2 goals and 1 assist on the night.
After the game, a visibly upset Quintin Laing, Heat captain, took personal responsibility for the loss.
“I’ll take the heat for that and for our overall play,” he said. “My game wasn’t good enough and that trickled down to the guys.”
Laing blamed himself for an early Americans goal scored right after he exited the penalty box, where he served time for an interference infraction. Still Laing contended that many of his teammates had worked hard.
Heat head coach Tory Ward pinned the loss on a tough travel schedule that left the team feeling depleted.
“It’s the fastest game in the world,” he said, “but when you don’t play it fast, it doesn’t favour you.”
The Heat hope to rest up after the loss and look forward to Saturday when they kick off back-to-back home games against the Lake Erie Monsters. Puck drop for the first match is at 7 p.m. on Saturday and the second at 4 p.m. on Sunday.
