It was close, but the Henderson Silver Knights had no cigars.
The Silver Knights came out strong down the stretch but lost 4-3 in overtime to the Coachella Valley Firebirds on Saturday.
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The Firebirds will be rewarded for putting pressure on the Silver Knights early. Late in the first period, Logan Morrison found Jani Nyman, who fired the puck past Jesper Vikman without making any mistakes. It was Niemann’s 10th goal in the past 12 games, adding to his tally.
That was the only blemish in a stellar opening 20 minutes for Vickman, who made 14 saves on 15 shots, including stopping a deflection in the final minutes.
“Well, I really liked his first season,” Silver Knights head coach Ryan Craig said of Vickman’s performance. “He’s fighting for us.”
The second period started quickly with help from Ben Hemeling. The player found Hemmerling in front of the net, where he cashed in on the puck and fired it past Firebirds goalie Jake LaFontaine to tie the game at one.
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“It was another great game [Tanner Laczynski]”, Hemmerling said of the goal.”[Jackson] Hallum, nice move through the slot there, just putting it there [Laczynski] do his thing…and [Laczynski] able to find me.
When tempers begin to flare, the Firebirds are in complete control. Logan Morrison gave Coachella Valley the lead back on the power play and then scored his second goal of the game just over two minutes later to give the Firebirds some cushion.
With a minute left in the third quarter, all seemed lost as the Firebirds kept the Silver Knights pinned.
Raphael Lavoie then took over.
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With 36 seconds left, Lavoie won a game in front of the net and scored another goal to put the Silver Knights within one. He responded 20 seconds later, scoring three goals each to tie the game and send the game into overtime, something that had previously seemed unthinkable.
“I thought [Lavoie] It was good there in the end. I think he’s still trying to come back,” Craig said.
“After being out and playing three quarters of the game, it’s hard to come back, but to his credit he fought hard at the end and scored two big goals for us.”
Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to secure the victory, as Ty Nelson capitalized on a power play in overtime to secure the victory for Coachella Valley.
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“We’re definitely going to take a breather,” Craig said of the upcoming All-Star break. “We played a lot of hockey in three days, some even more because of tonight’s penalty… We’re going to be away from it for a few days. Obviously, we’re excited [Laczynski] Represented us in the All-Star Game, but we improved over the last 29 games. “