(KNOX) – With 3:12 left of the third period, Thor Seeger scored to give Red River a 3-0 lead over Central, seemingly delivering control of the game to the Roughriders and pushing the Knights toward their first league loss of the season.
Thirty seconds and two Central goals later, the control was gone, and a period later, the Knights had somehow escaped.
Nolan Marto scored 10 seconds after Seeger’s goal, and Rylan Spicer scored the first of his two goals 20 seconds later, cutting the lead to 3-2, and the final blow came when Trey Clauson scored on the five-on-three advantage with just 36 seconds left to deliver a 4-3 win for Central at Blue Line IcePlex Tuesday night.
Spicer scored the tying goal at 12:40 of the period, tying a game that saw Red River outshoot Central 10-2 to start the game, only to see the Knights outshoot the Riders 24-9 to the finish.
Griffen Haagenson started the scoring for Red River, finishing a play set by Kyler Bydal, scooping up Bydal’s rebound at 12:15 of the first. Blaise Neubert then picked a turnover and scored at 15:44, and the Riders led 2-0 after one.
Seeger scored after Brody Lucier found him near the right circle just after a power play expired, but before Central had regained even-strength footing in the defensive zone. Rylan Edman made a key play in the sequence, holding a puck in the offensive zone on a Central attempt to kill off the power play.
Central then captured the momentum in a sizable way.
Marto picked a puck clean off the left wall in the neutral zone, cut across the ice to his forehand and scored from the high slot 10 seconds after Seeger’s goal. Spicer took a puck from neutral ice, moved out of the right circle and scored from his backhand 20 seconds later, cutting the lead to one.
Spicer scored his second goal of the night to tie, setting up the finish. Bad breaks for the Riders played a factor in the finish.
Haagenson took an interference minor at 14:36 of the third, followed just 10 seconds later with a Caden Svoboda slashing call, and the Riders faced 1:50 of a two-man disadvantage, and nearly killed the penalties on a pair of tough saves by goaltender Rilan Korynta.
Gavin Wockenfuss fanned on a one-timer near the end of the two-man advantage, but chased the puck down in the right corner, and sent it across the slot where Clauson was waiting in the left circle. Clauson hammered a one-timer past Korynta at 16:24 of the final frame, with just 12 seconds left of the five-on-three power play.
The Central “Grey Line” of Marto, Spicer, and Wockenfuss accounted for eight points. Wockenfuss assisted on the game winner by Clauson, as well as Marto’s goal and Spicer’s first score. Marto assisted on Clauson’s winner and Spicr’s first.
Central moves to 20 points in the Eastern Dakota Conference standings, a point behind West Fargo Sheyenne. Red River stays at 18 points. The win captured the Gambucci Cup for Central, who tied East Grand Forks in the cup standings with nine points each. The teams split the regular season series, with Central winning the tiebreakers.
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