After the surprising victory over the league-leading Calgary Chinook last Sunday evening, the Musicmen were ripe for an emotional letdown. With so many younger players, it wouldn't have been a shock to anyone in the hockey world if the kids had not refocused properly for the game against the Thunder in Niagara Falls, Ontario.
Facing a five-game road trip that would take them to Niagara Falls, Ottawa, Fort Erie, Seattle and then Dartmouth - one of the longer road trips of the season, Dayton management was reasonably concerned about what kind of performance would they see from the team against the Thunder when they faced off Tuesday evening.
"Coach talked to us during the morning skate about how important it was we put the win over Calgary out of our minds and focused on Niagara. The Thunder is a fast, physical team and they have a lot of experience over there. If we didn't come out and play our game, things could get out of hand pretty fast," said Thomas Vanek.
From the drop of the puck, it was apparent to anyone in the Thunderdome, the team from Dayton had listened.
By the end of the first period, Dayton led 3-0 on goals by Alex Barkov (11th - unassisted), Sean Monahan (8th - PPG - Weircioch/Drouin) and Jake Guentzel (8th - unassisted). Dayton outshot the Thunder 14-13 and whereas the hosts took four penalties, the Musicmen took just a single minor when newcomer Damon Severson served a bench minor for too many men on the ice.
"We knew these guys are young and fast and would be all pumped up after beating Calgary the other night. We didn't skate, that led to all the penalties and we have no one to blame but ourselves," said Brooks Orpik.
The second period was a very different affair as the Thunder came out with a purpose in their game and by the end of the twenty minutes, had outshot the visitors 15-8 and had scored three goals of their own to tie the game.
"We talked about Stamkos in the pregame and we just couldn't handle him very well in the second. They obviously made some adjustments that gave us a lot of trouble," said Vanek.
Stamkos scored his 7th goal of the year and then set up Rick Nash for his 4th tally of the season, to lead the comeback.
In the third, Niagara pressured Dayton netminder Brian Elliott as the Thunder dominated play and outshot the visitors 15-3. Elliott was called on to make several none bigger than stopping Stamkos on a breakaway from the center ice line at the 9:19 mark of the period.
"Stamkos has owned me in the past and he usually goes high blocker on me.I cheated a bit and guessed right," said Elliott.
With the frustration level growing with each Elliott save, the Thunder made a mental error when they played for 15 seconds with only four skaters on the ice.
"That's on me," said James Neal. "I was looking at this broad up in section B-21 and I obviously didn't notice when our line jumped over the boards."
After outmuscling a Thunder player behind the Dayton net, Francois Beauchemin chipped the puck up to Barkov who, with Dylan Larkin, came in on a two on one against Niagara Falls defenseman Anthony DeAngelo.
Barkov skated directly at DeAngelo and at the point where the defenseman committed to engaging him, slid the disk over to Larkin, who walked in with plenty of room, dropped his left should on Thunder goalie Al Montoya, then drew it to his backhand and scored to give Dayton a 4-3 lead with 3:25 left in regulation.
"Once Dylan scored, you could see the letdown on them right away, " said Vanek.
The one goal victory and the ability to bend but not break in the third should be instructive for the young guys.
"If it wasn't for Brian, we would've blown this game for sure - thank god he was there when we needed him," said Vanek.
Dayton improved 8-11-0 on the season.
What's next?
Dayton travels to Canada's Capital city of Ottawa for a game Wednesday evening against the Barracudas, who are 8-10-1 so far this season and sit one point ahead of the Musicmen in the Corfield Conference.
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