Dayton Shocks Chinook, 5-4...

Jake scored a goal and 2 assists vs. Calgary

Dayton knew this game was coming up on the schedule for days. They found themselves in a tough stretch where they had dropped four in a row and six of their last seven games.

They had slid from 5th in the Corfield Conference to last place after this recent cold spell. Everything from weak penalty killing to a lack of scoring to less than stellar netminding played a part in the last two weeks of bad play.

Calgary, holders of the best record in the CCHL had just dropped a game to Ottawa on Friday night, by blowing a lead late in the game. It was fully expected, given the star players on the Chinook, that Calgary would come out flying last night against a terribly and totally over-matched Musicmen team.

Most hockey fans were expecting a lopsided outcome with the only question - how many goals would Dayton lose by to the best team in the league?

This is a funny game sometimes...

Less than a minute into the game, Thomas Vanek had scored his 7th goal of the season. Dayton leads 1-0.

By the seven-minute mark of the period, Jake Guentzel scored his 7th goal of the season. Dayton leads 2-0.

Ten seconds later, Jakob Silferberg scored his 5th to make it a 2-1 Dayton lead.

(It was fully expected Calgary would now crush the Musicmen...)

Before the first period ended, there were three more goals scored and Dayton scored two of them, giving the home team underdogs a 4-2 lead.

Joe Pavelski and Artemi Panarin, two former Musicmen traded earlier this season to Calgary, both scored in the second period as did Dayton's Alexander Barkov, which left Dayton with a 5-4 lead entering the third period.

Despite being outshot 20-9 in the third period, Dayton stood tall and amazingly held off the Chinook, to win the game 5-4.

Calgary outshot Dayton 53-25 for the game.

Guentzel and Vanek each posted 3 point nights, Brian Elliott stopped 49 of 53 shots he faced.

Game Notes: 

Calgary knocked two Dayton defensemen out for extended periods during the game. Mark Stuart will be out for 25 days after taking a skate blade to the face and Jyrki Jokipakka will be out 40 days after sustaining an undisclosed head injury.

What's next?

Dayton travels to Niagara Falls for a game against the Thunder on Tuesday night.