Peyton Krebs was the lone goal-scorer in the shootout, while goaltender Duncan McGovern stood tall to lift the Kootenay Ice to a 5-4 shootout win over the visiting Edmonton Oil Kings on Friday night in Cranbrook.
Kootenay was set for a 4-3 win in regulation, but Edmonton crashed the Ice crease with the extra attacker and Quinn Benjafield tallied a goal with five seconds left in the game that elicited a furious reaction from the home bench and the crowd.
Nothing was solved in overtime, despite a heavy push from Edmonton, before moving to the shootout.
“I thought we really hunkered down defensively on the three-on-three,” said Ice head coach James Patrick. “They got the change on us, they were able to jump and once you get possession and you get a team tired and they had three fresh bodies on us twice, I thought we did a great job trying to stay in shot lane with a number of different guys out there.
“I thought that helped us get to the shootout.”
The Ice. which have struggled with lukewarm starts this season, came out strong for three first-period goals that set the tone.
“I really liked our intensity and effort from the opening faceoff was a lot better,” said Patrick. “It’s what we need, just being a little more aggressive - on lost faceoffs we were hungry and jumping and putting pressure, so I liked that. It set the tone for us, we definitely had some more battle to our game, so a lot of good signs.”
Brendan Semchuk opened the scoring for his first goal in a Kootenay uniform while playing against his former club.
At the midway point, Brett Kemp tied it up for the Oil Kings, but Martin Bodak and Cam Hausinger potted back-to-back efforts within a minute of each other for their first goals of the season.
Connor McDonald brought Edmonton with a goal on the powerplay in the second period, before the Ice responded on the man-advantage of their own with Jaeger White’s first goal in Kootenay colours.
Andrei Pavlenko bit back into the Ice lead at the third period halfway mark to bring the Oil Kings back within a goal, before Benjafield’s near buzzer beater forced overtime.