Charles Panchisin scored the lone goal in the skills competition to lead the Rebels to a 2 – 1 shootout win. Ryan Bunting’s 15th goal of the season tied the contest at one in the second period.
It is only the second time in which the Rebels won in Johnstown in team history. The other time Philadelphia won at the 1st Summit Arena was back on October 1, 2022 when they won 4 = 3 in overtime.
Although no goals were scored in the opening period, it was up and down action. Then, with fourteen seconds remaining In the first, Linans Dedinas was called for tripping to put the Tomahawks on the man advantage to close out the first period and start the second period on the powerplay.
Johnstown’s Lukas Klemm start the play at the top of the center point and sent it to Markas Samenas at the top of the far side faceoff circle. Samenas sent a pass downlow to Cullen Emery who was to the right of Rebels netminder Anthony Sciere. Emery made a cross-ice pass through the goalmouth to Sam Blanton who took a backdoor, one-timer that just beat the outstretched glove of Sciere to make it a 1 – 0 game.
Bunting evened the score at 9:38 into the middle stanza. As Johnstown’s Dallas Potter tried to bring the biscuit into the offensive zone, he was stripped of the puck by Ryan Vaites at the center of the Rebels blueline. The biscuit was picked up by Bunting at center ice and he went towards the far side boards. As Bunting gained the line, he took a wrist shot from just inside the hash marks that beat Johnstown goalie Nick Avakyan long side. Bunting is one goal shy of doubling his entire goal output from last season.
The teams combined to take 26 shots in the second period.
The shot production was cut in half in the third period where neither team scored to send it into overtime. After a scoreless extra period, it went to the skills competition where Panchisin scored the lone goal to give the Rebels their seventeenth win of the season.
Sciere stopped 25 of 26 shots while Avakyan turned aside 26 of 27/ Click HERE for the complete box score.
