Falcons Beat The Rats 3-2
October 24, 2008 - American Hockey League (AHL)
Springfield Falcons News Release
The Springfield Falcons took a 3-1 lead after the first period and held on to defeat the Albany River Rats 3-2 Friday evening at the MassMutual Center to bring their early season record to 3-2-1-0.
The Falcons came out early in the first period with a message for Albany, setting the tone with physical play on the very first shift of the game. Led by captain Tim Sestito, the Falcons forwards let the Rats know that touching the puck would come at a price.
Despite dominating play early, the Falcons fell behind at 5:14 on a 4-on-4 goal by Albany's Jakub Petruzalek. The goal came after a brief Falcon's power play was negated by a penalty to Taylor Chorney and while Albany's goalkeeper Justin Peters was pulled for an extra attacker due to a second Falcons' penalty. The Rats found the post three times before the puck squeaked past Springfield's Devan Dubnyk for the first tally of the game.
Albany's lead didn't last long, however. Just over two minutes later in the period, Rob Schremp moved with speed through the slot and fed a perfect backhand pass to Ryan Potulny, who streaked down the left wing and buried the puck to the short side.
It was Schremp to Potulny again about ten minutes later with the two players switching positions and Schremp freezing Albany's Peters before sending a rocket of a pass back to Potulny in the high slot. Potulny handled the hard pass deftly and hammered a one-timer into the vitually empty net for his second goal of the night. Jake Taylor added an assist on the play.
Springfield closed out the scoring for the period on a gritty power play goal by Liam Reddox, who was denied on his first attempt before digging out the rebound and sliding it home past Peters. Josef Hrabal picked up his first point of the season on the play with an assist.
Albany came out in the second period firing the puck. After a hard shot off Dubnyk's mask, the Rats capitalized on the rebound with a hard one-timer from the slot from Nick Dodge to cut the Springfield lead to 3-2 only 1:21 into the period.
The remainder of the second period was the Devan Dubnyk show. The Springfield netminder faced 14 shots in all during the period, including one furious segment around the midway point of the period. Following a brilliant save on a clean Albany breakaway, Dubnyk was peppered by shot after shot before Springfield was finally able to clear the zone.
The final frame turned out to be a goaltender's duel as well. Dubnyk turned away a tremendous Albany opportunity early, flashing his left pad to stop a shot just on the doorstep. The Rats' Peters was equally good in the period, especially on a late Falcons' power play thanks to a hooking call to Albany's Marc Cavosie.
Despite Peters' efforts keeping the game close, however, Albany was unable to capitalize, even with the goalie pulled for the last minute of the game, allowing Springfield to hold on for the win.
Three Stars
#1 - Ryan Potulny - Springfield (2 G)
#2 - Rob Schremp - Springfield (2 A)
#3 - Jakub Petruzalek - Albany (1 G, 1 A)
Attendance: 2813
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