Turning Point

While it may not have seemed like it at the time, this shift was the catalyst for a huge momentum swing. In the dying minutes of the second period, the Whalers' third line was up against the Falcons' second line. On a previous shift, Nicholas Corrigan and Zoltan Topalo had gotten in a scrum near the Falcons goal when Topalo poked at a puck that was under the glove of White Goodman. On this play, the puck was dumped into the Detroit end while the Whalers were changing. It's not totally clear what happened, but Corrigan and Topalo collided in the confusion, and the Whalers centre took this opportunity to challenge his opponent to a fight, although Corrigan didn't exactly wait for him to oblige, throwing his gloves aside quickly. Both wingers got some pretty good shots in and the fight was a draw, but Corrigan was nevertheless ejected for instigating this fight. This proved to be significant. On the ensuing power play, Jmac NCheese collected a loose puck in the slot with time winding down and fired off a quick shot that fooled White Goodman, going low and to the blocker side. The puck went in the net with only 0.8 seconds left, deflating a Whalers team that was only moments away from leaving the period with a tied score and giving the Detroit fans new life.

Third Period

The Whalers were apparently sufficiently shocked by the last-second goal and came out of the dressing room for the third period looking better, although they were still outshot 10 to 6 in this period. Five minutes in, Austin Powers won an offensive faceoff for Vancouver and the fourth line went to work. Powers won the draw and kept the puck for himself, then found a quickly open Lucas Leclerc at the left circle for the fifth-round rookie's third goal of the year and the game was tied once more. The Falcons would strike again when Kaarlo Kekkonen scored his second goal of the game off an odd-man rush where he carried the puck into the offensive end and put a nice move on Sven Yxskaft before netting his tenth goal of the year. Vancouver's heart proved to be powerful, though. Late in the game, Falcons rookie Jack Kanoff took a holding penalty. The Whalers' power play went to work, and with just 1:18 left in regulation, the dam finally broke. Mikas Bieksa took a heavy shot from the blueline that Jobin stopped but couldn't handle. The rebound came out to Vancouver's leading scorer Francois Breton, and the veteran whacked home his twelfth goal of the season to tie it up.

Extra Time

The five minutes of bonus hockey weren't overly notable, with the best chance for either side being a Sven Yxskaft wrist shot that hit the post behind Jobin and rattled away. In the shootout, the Whalers led off with their game-tying hero and leading scorer Francois Breton, but his shot went wide of the net. The Falcons countered with Khabib Nurmagomedov, but White Goodman isn't the league leader in save percentage for nothing, as he made a pretty tricky save to keep it even. Marcus Ohlsson was up next, and similar to Breton before him, he tried to fake out Jobin but missed the net. Detroit came back with their leading scorer, Kaarlo Kekkonen, and he finally opened the shootout scoring with a shot that beat Goodman. Stracimir Petrovic came out next for the Whalers and scored to keep them alive, but it was all for naught as Cal Labovitch put away the game on the next attempt with a goal of his own.

Three Stars

First Star: JMac Ncheese, LW, DET - 2 G

Ncheese scored two goals, as did Kekkonen, but his tallies came at very opportune times; one to open the scoring in the first period, and his second goal to beat the buzzer on the power play in the second period.

Second Star: Kaarlo Kekkonen, RW, DET - 2 G

Kekkonen is leading the league scoring race, and he played like it, with two goals on seven shots and another goal in the shootout.

Third Star: Luke McMaster, C, DET - 2 A, 22:12 TOI, 3:17 PK TOI

The Falcons centre set up Kekkonen for both of his goals, and also led his team in penalty-killing time.