OKLAHOMA CITY, OKLAHOMA – The Corpus Christi IceRays (29-14-3) fought back to pick up a point, but fall to the Oklahoma Warriors (15-26-6) by a final score of 4-3 in a shootout on Saturday night at the Blazers Ice Centre. It was the IceRays third loss of the season in a shootout and second at the hands of the Warriors to wrap up an eight game season series.
The IceRays got off to a much better start than the previous night but for the third straight game they saw their opponent score the opening goal. At the 7:13 mark in the 1st period Riley Fast scooped up a rebound off the pad of IceRays Goalie Benji Motew and slid it past his outstretched leg for his ninth goal of the season to give the Warriors a 1-0 lead. Following the goal Corpus Christi started pressing and sent shot after shot at Billy Stuski who was making his second straight start for Oklahoma. Inside the final 10 minutes of the period the speedy Cooper Conway took a flip pass from Stepan Kuznetsov, made a defender miss and beat Stuski through the five-hole to bring the IceRays back to level. Unfortunately, the tie would not last long as the IceRays turned the puck over at the attacking blue line and the puck ended up in the back of their net off the stick of Paul Wiczek to restore a one goal lead for the Warriors.
Oklahoma wasted no time extending their lead as Jack McClellan swatted home a rebound inside the opening three minutes of the 2nd period to open up a 3-1 lead for the Warriors. Corpus Christi has not come from behind to win a game when trailing by more than one goal all season as they looked to chip away at the Warriors lead. After surviving a second penalty in the game the IceRays had numbers with Krenke out of the box who took a drop pass from Billy Biedermann and fed a pass across for a one-timer by Matthew Green to produce a rebound batted home by Pier-Olivier Allard for his first career goal in the NAHL to make it a 3-2 game. That scoreline would hold into the second intermission.
It took nearly all period for the IceRays to find an equalizer, but it finally came off a centering pass by Conway to a wide open Kuznetsov who one timed into the back of the net to tie the game at three with under four minutes to go in regulation. That score would hold to send us to overtime where the majority of time was spent with possession and sparse chances against both goalies. However, Conway would draw a penalty with 45 seconds in the overtime period to give the IceRays a power play. Conway would then go on to fire a shot off the post in the dying seconds of overtime and taking us too a shootout. Corpus Christi came up empty on their first three bids in a shootout and Ethan Gonyeau played hero for the Warriors with the lone shootout goal to end the Warriors eight game losing streak.
