One of the earliest games of the entire SMJHL season, this particular one was played by the Anchorage Armada squaring off against the Detroit Falcons. Both teams are looking to make more significant impacts in their attempts to obtain the Four Star Cup compared to last season. While it wasn’t the most offensively action packed game, it was still a highly competitive one between two hungry teams.

FIRST PERIOD
The first half of the initial period of the game was relatively quiet with no scoring chances converted into goals. That changed ten minutes and fifteen seconds into the period, however, thanks to Raphael D’Alcott of the Armada, who scored his first goal of the season off a rebound from Spencer MacLean. The assisting parties were the aforementioned MacLean and Kalevi Karhunen, who both earned their first assists of the season, respectively. Around five minutes later in the period, the Armada managed to double their lead, thanks to a goal from Olivier Cloutier, who also scored his first goal of the season for the Armada. The goal was another rebound goal, with Kalevi Karhunen earning the primary assist from his shot on goal (and both his second assist of the game and season), while Tony Ford earned his first assist of the season, in general. All hope wasn’t lost for the Falcons this period, however, as with twenty-four seconds left in the period, the Falcons managed to cut the Armada’s lead in half thanks to rookie defenseman Noah Andros’ first goal of the season, with the only assist on the goal going to Raino Kyllonen. At this point of the game, we had a highly offensive second half of the first period, with the Armada leading the Falcons by a score of 2-1.

SECOND PERIOD
The second period was far less offensively action packed than the first one, but it did manage to allow the Falcons to tie the game. A little over six minutes into the period, the Falcons tied things at 2-2 thanks to Kalvins Zvejnieks’ first goal of the season, which he managed to score off of his own face-off victory. The goal was assisted by both Satoshi Zizagooney and Savoli Tankovic’s first assits of the season, as well. No other scoring action occurred during the duration of this period, and the buzzer sounded with all things tied up at a score of 2-2 entering the third and final period of the game.

THIRD PERIOD
The third and final period between both teams was looking like it was going to be scoreless and that we might be heading to overtime to have a winner. However, with a little less than four minutes remaining in regulation, the Armada managed to score the game winning goal. Andris Dzerins scored an incredibly clutch goal for his first one of the season, as he snapped a really powerful wrist-shot from one of the circles. The assists were rewarded to both Johnny Sins and Brock Emmerton, who both earned their first assists of the season on the game winning goal. This allowed the Armada to take a 3-2 lead with minutes remaining, and that would ultimately wind up being the final score of the game.