The Sea Dogs Get Iced

Mississauga, ON – The Kootenay Ice avoid elimination after beating the tournament favourite Saint John Sea Dogs 5-4 in overtime Tuesday night at the Hershey Centre.

Matt Fraser led the offense for the Ice with a two-goal performance.  Drew Czerwonka, Kevin King, and Jesse Ismond completed the scoring for the Ice.

Tomas Jurco notched two-goals for the Sea Dogs. Ryan Tesink and Kevin Gagne scored the other two.

It was the final game of round robin play for both the Sea Dogs and the Ice.

The Sea Dogs clinched a birth into the final of the 2011 MasterCard Memorial Cup with a thrilling overtime win against the Owen Sound Attack the night before.

The Ice, after falling to the Mississauga St. Michael’s Majors and the Attack, found themselves in a must win situation.

“I thought we played relentless,” said Ice forward Cody Eakin about his team’s play tonight.  “We finally got some offense and it’s what we needed.”

The Ice came into this game with only one goal for, in two games of play.

After a scoreless first period, the Sea Dogs opened the scoring just 1:17 into the second frame when forward Tesink fired from the slot beating net minder Nathan Lieuwen over the glove.

The Sea Dogs kept coming and were rewarded again just four minutes later.  Jurco made a nice move on Lieuwen, faking forehand, then going to his backhand lifting the puck over the sprawled goaltender.

The Ice, looking to avoid trailing by more than two, managed to cut the lead in half when Czerwonka beat Sea Dogs goalie Mathieu Corbeil-Theriault with a wrap-around on the power play.

Sea Dogs head coach Gerard Gallant started Corbeil-Theriault giving Jacob DeSerres the night off after facing 44 shots in the win against the Attack.

The Sea Dogs got into penalty trouble once again after Eric Gelinas and Mike Thomas both went to the box giving the Ice a five-on-three power play.  King wired a pass from Brayden McNabb, going top shelf on Corbeil-Theriault. McNabb, fresh off his one-game suspension for an elbow thrown in their tournament opener, had two helpers in the game.

Feeding off the momentum the Ice opened the scoring just 23 seconds into the third period.  Ismond found the puck on his tape with an open net as Corbeil-Theriault had trouble hanging onto the initial shot from King.

Both teams exchanged goals maintaining the one –goal lead for the Ice until Jurco netted his second of the game.

Jurco, who was in front of the net, took a shot from Zack Phillips off the head redirecting it into the Ice net with just 14 seconds left to play in regulation sending the Sea Dogs to overtime for the second time in as many days.

Jurco’s two goal performance tonight gives him four for the tournament and the tournament lead in goals and points with five.

The Ice wouldn’t let the late goal slow them down as Fraser netted his second of the game after a failed clearing attempt by Eric Gelinas just 3:55 into the overtime.

“It was good tonight to finally get on the score sheet” said Fraser on his two-goal performance. “It was good for our team to score some goals and get our confidence back.”

The Ice will now wait for the loser of the final round robin game between the Majors and Attack that goes tomorrow night to determine who they will face in a tie-breaker for third place and a birth into the semi-final.