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| Elliott has stopped 61 of his last 66 shots |
Once again, it was Dayton's young forwards who controlled the contest with Alexander Barkov setting up three goals while Sebastien Aho, Nate MacKinnon, Jake Guentzel and Jonathon Drouin who each had two points.
Musicmen goalie Brian Elliott stopped 32 of 34 Owl shots on goal and has stopped 61 of the last 66 shots on goal he's faced.
"We've made some adjustments with our D in the last couple practices and they're letting me see the puck. The first couple games, everything was getting jammed in close and I couldn't see much. The last two games, though have been great. If I can see the shot, I'll usually stop it..." said Elliott.
The Owl's Mikael Granlund scored the game's first goal at just: 39 seconds into the first period. Dayton was caught in a terrible line change and Granlund picked up the puck at center ice and walked in from mid-ice and beat Elliott through the legs to give the Owls an early 1-0 lead.
"Not exactly the way we wanted to start..." said GM Bill Corfield.
Corfield immediately called a timeout and basically read the riot act to his young team. "I knew we could skate with this team, but we have to...HAVE TO... keep our heads on straight. I told them the game starts over, right now. Let's think while we're out there boys!"
Whatever Corfield's message was, it sure worked as goals by Aho (1), Guentzel (4), Upshall (1) and Aho again (2) gave the Musicmen a 4-1 by the middle of the second period.
"Coach laid it on the line, that's for sure... if we don't play right, we won't play," said Aho.
Portland's Patrick Sharp, a former Musicman, scored the second goal of the night for the Owls to close the deficit to two goals, but in the third, Nate MacKinnon scored a goal (3) and set up another (Monahan - 3) to give Dayton the win, 6-2.
Asked in the post-game, which player stood out tonight, Corfield said, "You know who had a nice game tonight? Jonathon Drouin. Jon only played a few shifts tonight, 6 minutes of ice time, but set up two goals in that short time. He's working hard in practice, has three points in the 3 games he's played, is a +3 so far and hasn't taken a single penalty. We're going to move him to the 2nd line with Alex and Sebastien for the next few games and see how that goes."
Drouin's promotion likely means less time for Dylan Larkin, who has played in two more games than Drouin, but has 1 fewer points, is even in plus/minus and has 6 pims already.
"I know there are things I need to work on in my game. Trust me, I've been made well aware of it by the coaches," said Larkin.
Three Stars:
1st-Brian Elliott
2nd-Alex Barkov
3rd-Sebastien Aho
Up next:
The Wisborg Donuts (2-2-2) will be in town this Wednesday evening for a 7:00pm contest.
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