The Danbury Jr. Hat Tricks scored three third period goals en route to a 6 – 4 win over the visiting Rebels last night at the Danbury Ice Arena. The game entered the final stanza tied at three.
It was the Rebels fourth straight loss.
Danbury’s Brock Behrend opened the scoring just 1:36 into the game. The Tricks’ Jack Wuertz brought the puck into the offensive zone along the far side boards and dumped it into the corner. As Lukas Fursten went to anticipate the biscuit wrapping around the end wall, the puck took a bounce off the corner and went straight to the slot where Behrend tapped it into the empty net for his second goal of the year.
Brock Jones evened the score at one at 7:20 into the first. Ryan Bunting picked up the loose puck at center ice and skated towards the far side boards. As he gained the line, he slightly turned and passed it to Jones just inside the blue line and Jones took a one timer that beat Danbury netminder Miles Roberts long side for his’ second goal of the season.
Josh Galizia gave the Rebels a 2 – 1 lead with 1:02 remaining in the first. After Danbury won the draw deep inside the Rebels zone, the puck went back to Aiden Ferro at the far side point. Ferro went to take a clapper, but the puck was redirected by Galizia and it went high into the air and gloved down my Max Marquette just outside his own blue line. Marquette head manned the biscuit to Galizia who walked in all alone on Roberts and went from his left to his right and deked around Roberts for Galizia’s first goal of the season.
Danbury tied the game at two at the six-minute mark of the second period with a shorthanded goal by Grant Dietz. With play inside the Tricks zone, a Danbury defender dumped the puck into the Rebels zone where it went off the end wall and retrieved by Fursten. As Fursten went to play the biscuit behind his own net, Dietz stripped him of it and Dietz skated in front of the cage and deposited the puck into the empty net.
The Rebels took their last lead of the game with eight minutes left in the middle stanza. Paddy Fortune intercepted the biscuit just inside the Tricks zone and passed it up to Jones at the half wall. Jones sent a return pass to Fortune and the Torrance, CA native took a wrist shot that beat Roberts short side to make it a 3 – 2 game.
The Tricks tied the contest at three with 1:12 remaining in second when Dietz brought the puck into the Rebels zone. As he gained the line on a two-on-one, he passed the puck to Logan Nickerson on his right and Nickerson took a wrister that beat Fursten long side for Nickerson’s second goal of the season.
Danbury then scored two consecutive goals starting at fifty-nine seconds into the third after Dietz took a wrist shot from the far side half wall that was saved by Fursten but the rebound came right out to Alex Georgaklis who tapped the puck into the back of the net to make it a 4 – 3 game.
The Trick’s Wyatt Stefan made it 5 – 3 at the 3:24 mark when he took a wrist shot from the far side faceoff circle that went off Fursten’s pads and into the net for Stefan’s team high seventh goal of the season.
Fursten was replaced by Jack Fialkoff.
Marquette scored a shorthanded breakaway goal with 8:31 left in the third to bring the Rebels within one but Jacob Roberson put the game out of reach with an empty net goal with 2:15 remaining in the game to close out the scoring and make it 6 – 4.
Fursten and Fialkoff combined to stop 21 of 27 shots while Roberts turned aside 24 of 28. Click HERE for the complete box score.
The teams will play game two of this two-game series tonight at 7:00PM.
