Janesville, Wis. – The MN Magicians Magicians survived a determined comeback attempt by the Janesville Jets on the way to a 3-2 win.
MN Magicians made the score 3-0 on a goal by Denis Shevyrin at 12:39 in the first period, and Janesville got as close as 3-2 when Michael Louria scored 39 seconds into the third period.
The Magicians' penalty kill excelled, as MN Magicians gave up one goal despite allowing six power plays.
By firing 28 shots on goal, the Magicians exceeded the 24.5 shots they average per game this year.
MN Magicians was helped by Travis Koepke, who had one goal. Koepke scored 2:40 into the first period to make the score 1-0 MN Magicians. Sandis Zolmanis provided the assist. Thomas Delaney also scored for MN Magicians. Other players who recorded assists for MN Magicians were Derick Kuchera, Eetu Karvinen, Mario Bianchi, and Nick Uglem, who each chipped in one.
The Jets put 31 shots on net during the contest, more than the 23.3 they average per game.
Janesville was helped by Drew Callin, who racked up one goal. Callin scored 12:20 into the second period to make the score 3-1 MN Magicians. Kyle Patava picked up the assist. In addition, Janesville received assists from Bryan Kronberger, Grant Stueve, and Nick Petrella, who contributed one a piece.
The Magicians' Atte Tolvanen stopped 29 shots out of the 31 that he faced. MN Magicians incurred 12 minutes in penalty time with six minors. Logan Halladay made 25 saves for the Jets on 28 shots. Janesville ended with 25 minutes in penalty time with five minors and one major. For the Jets, Robin Hoglund was ejected from the game.
Coach Joe Dibble says, “It’s safe to say we lost that game within the first twenty minutes. Taking a major penalty like that I will have to go back and watch it on the film and see if it was legitimate major, I understand someone got hurt but from our end it didn’t look like it should have been a penalty. We gave up two power play goals in the first period and we came out flat. I thought in the second period we came out and showed we were able to battle through some adversity and we played hard. We won the second period and we came out in the third with that same intensity, had that power play to start the third and gained ourselves some momentum by scoring early and then we fell a little bit short. We won the second and third periods but unfortunately we had a couple penalties too many. I think we played ten or twelve minutes too short in the first period and you can’t do that to win hockey games. You do not want to give up power play goals but tonight they got a couple and tonight they were better in the special teams in the first, but I feel we made some big steps forward in the second and third.”