Fuel Defeat Heartlanders in Shootout Victory
Published on January 31, 2026 under ECHL (ECHL)
Indy Fuel News Release
CORALVILLE- The Indy Fuel visited the Iowa Heartlanders on Saturday night after a rare Friday night off. This was the first of two games against Iowa this weekend. After forcing overtime tied at 2-2, Indy killed off two penalties to win 3-2 in a shootout.
1ST PERIOD
Brett Moravec opened the scoring at 10:06 to put the Fuel on the board first. Lee Lapid and Matt Petgrave earned the assists.
At 16:48, Iowa's Alexander Stensson took the game's first penalty for holding. This put the Fuel on the power play, however they did not score.
Indy outshot the Heartlanders, 12-11 in the first period which ended with some feistiness between both teams.
2ND PERIOD
Just 29 seconds into the second frame, Thomas scored for Iowa to tie the game at 1-1.
Christian Berger took Indy's first penalty at 12:34. He was called for hooking. Indy was able to kill it off before going on the power play themselves at 17:40 when Rasmus Kumpulainen was called for holding.
That penalty was killed off as well and the period ended soon after, with Indy outshooting Iowa 13-6 in the frame.
3RD PERIOD
At 2:10, Sahil Panwar took a slashing penalty which put the Heartlanders back on the power play early in the third period.
Iowa's Matthew Sop scored on the power play to give the Heartlanders their first lead of the game.
Indy tied it up again less than three minutes later with a goal from Eric Martin. This made it 2-2.
At 11:17, Will Ennis was called for delay of game, putting the Fuel back on the penalty kill. They successfully killed it off.
Iowa's Elliot Desnoyers earned a penalty shot at 15:56 but Indy's Mitchell Weeks was able to stop it, keeping the score 2-2.
Keltie Jeri-Leon was called for slashing at 17:11, giving Indy an important late power play.
That one was killed off as well before the game headed to overtime, tied 2-2.
OVERTIME
Less than a minute into the overtime period, the Fuel's Jesse Tucker headed to the penalty box for boarding, putting the Heartlanders on a 4-on-3 power play.
The Fuel were able to kill that penalty off before taking another at 5:20. They would spend the remainder of the overtime period, killing off the bench minor for too many men on the ice.
After time expired, the game headed to a shootout.
In three rounds, the only goalscorer was Eric Martin for the Fuel. This secured the Fuel's victory over the Heartlanders after they outshot them, 35-25.
These two teams will meet again tomorrow in Iowa.
--INDYFUELHOCKEY.COM--
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