By Win Wachsmann. In front of a official crowd of 1872, The Rochester Americans snuffed the Abbotsford Heat by a score of 6-2 on Wednesday at the AESC.
After defeating Rochester 3-2 on Tuesday in a rare afternoon game in front of over 6000 Abbotsford school children and snapping the Americans’ five-game winning streak, the Heat had trouble scoring on American’s goalie David Leggio.
Right off the bat, the Heat took two penalties and played with a two man disadvantage for almost 2 minutes. They managed to keep the Americans off the scoreboard with stellar penalty killing.
Just seconds after the penalty expired, the Americans opened the scoring at 5:43 of the opening period when Brian Flynn took a pass from Captain Kevin Porter and one-timed it past Heat goalie Barry Brust. Brayden McNabb got the second assist.
The Heat tied it with a power-play goal at 15:41. when centre Ben Street took a pass from Joe Callahan and fired a goal off the post and in behind Leggio for his 12th goal of the season.
The Heat had four penalties in the first period but were able to stop the power play.
The Americans took the lead at .39 of the second period while playing four-on-four. Luke Adam out from behind the net and fired a shot that fooled Brust. That was Adam’s tenth of the season.
At 7:23 D-man Brady Lamb evened the score when Tyler Ruegsegger kicked the puck to him at the point and found the net over Leggio’s glove for only his second goal of the season.
Brian Flynn picked up his second of the game (and the 17th of the season) on a power play at 15:33 when he fired a wrist shot from the left face-off dot through Nick Tarnasky’s screen. Brust was screened on the shot and the Americans too the lead.
In the third period Rochester captain Kevin Porter took Patrick Rissmiller’s pass off the boards and beat Brust at 18:28 of the second. That was Porter’s 15th goal of the season.
In the third, Rissmiller threw the puck on net and Frederick Roy fired the rebound past Brust at 4:38 of the third.
Mark Mancari finished off the Heat at 15:01, with a nice three-way passing play from Kevin Sundher and Kevin Porter.
Heat premier goalie Danny Taylor signed to a two-way deal by the Calgary Flames on Wednesday and was subsequently called up when Kiprosoff was injured. Tyson Sexsmith, who played four games in the KHL this season, was signed a pro try-out and will be backing up Barry Brust for the immediate future.
The Heat were fought off 8 of 9 power plays, while the Americans fought off 3 of 4 penalties.
The next home game for the Heat is Saturday February 9 against the Lake Erie Monsters at 7 PM.