Silver Knights cannot keep first period momentum, fall to Tucson in overtime

It is not about how you start, but how you finish, unfortunately for the Henderson Silver Knights.

On Sunday, the Silver Knights fell victim to a comeback from the Tucson Roadrunners, dropping a hotly contested matchup 3-2 in overtime.

The Silver Knights got off to a flying start, once again taking advantage of an early power play. Jakub Brabenec was able to get a clean shot off from the point, using Jakub Demek as a screen to fool Tucson goaltender Jaxson Stauber to get Henderson on the board first.

“He’s done a good job,” said Silver Knights head coach Ryan Craig on Demek, who was playing his fifth game of the season after returning from injury.

“His first two [games] were in Colorado, never an easy place to play with the altitude. Hasn’t played for a while, so now he’s kind of fallen in the slog of the season and trying to play that way. We expect him to be a big, heavy guy, play below the hashmarks, get to the net front with good details defending, and that’s what he brings for us.”

Later in the first, the Roadrunners would fall victim to another mistake. Riley McKay beat Stauber to a loose puck, leaving the latter well out of his net. McKay was able to locate Matyas Sapovaliv, who fired it into the empty net to double the Henderson lead.

“I see [Stauber] racing out there,” said McKay on the quick-developing play. “Didn’t know exactly what he was going to do. See him slide, obviously didn’t want to get myself taken out and didn’t want to hit him either, so jumped over. Got lucky, puck hit me in the pads, and passed it over to [Sapovaliv]and he hit it in.

After a more back-and-forth second period, the Roadrunners were finally able to solve Cameron Whitehead. On the power play and with a Silver Knight left stranded without a stick, Roadrunners forward Andrew Agozzino was able to roof a puck over Whitehead for a goal in four straight games.

The third period was another close one between both teams, but the Roadrunners were able to secure a tie thanks to Sammy Walker’s deflection with an empty net.

“We gave up the one chance, it was the five-versus-six,” said Craig about the sequence. “We talked about it before the game. We have to be a lot heavier in the hard areas with the puck on our stick. I didn’t think we were heavy enough on the walls.”

In overtime, the last minute would prove disastrous once again. A good play from Stauber would spring a two-on-one chance, which Ben McCartney would finish to complete the Tucson comeback.

“I think we just got to look at what makes us successful,” said McKay about the team needing to close out games.

“We had a few goals just going to the paint, playing simple and going to the hard areas. We just got to stick to our standards, know what makes us succcesful. We just got to focus on ourselves and learn how to finish out games.”