When Clarence opened its season on Dec 5 against Williamsville East, the game ended in a 5-5 tie. On Saturday afternoon, exactly 5 weeks later, it was time for a rematch.
This time, the Flames took a 2-0 lead in the second on goals by Mike Krasinski and Matt Cohen, but they were unable to close out the game. Clarence came back to tie it in the last few minutes of the third with goals by Aaron Partridge and Nick Lunetta. Again, the game ended in a tie, but this time it was 2-2.
Although the first game was higher scoring than the most recent one, both goalies were playing in their first game of the season and let in a few goals they would have liked to have had back.
“I thought the first game, while it was 5-5, I think both teams, the goaltenders had wished they stopped a few more,” Clarence coach Rich Brooks said. “There were some goals that were kind of questionable, and that I thought that first game was probably a 2-2, 2-1, 3-3 game. And today was 2-2.”
Clarence forward Nick Lunetta was playing in his second game back after missing five games with an injury. In Thursday’s game against Canisius and for much of Saturday’s game, Lunetta spent time adjusting to being back on the ice and blocking out the fear of getting hurt again.
“First game two nights ago was pretty rough,” Lunetta said. “First game back, I was pretty paranoid, always looking over my shoulder, but I just kinda settled in here tonight, and I was pretty slow for the whole game until the third period.”
Finally, with less than three minutes to play and his team down 2-1, Lunetta was back to his goal-scoring self.
“Dylan Lock made a nice two-line pass from our own blue line, and I was able to poke it up over the stick of the defenseman I was on, and that made it two-on-one,” Lunetta explained. “Randy Felber tied up the other defenseman, and the goalie went down, and there was a lot of space right above his head, so I just shot it there.”
The puck went in and the game was tied at 2.
Throughout the game, Clarence played well. The Red Devils outshot Williamsville East 33-12 through regulation and 4-1 in overtime, but it took until the third period for the puck to find the net.
“Unfortunately, our 32 shots weren’t all that difficult to stop, many of them,” Brooks said. “So I thought we did very well end of the second period through the third period in controlling the play. I don’t think Will East had the puck all that much.”
And before the third period, Brooks told his team “what we already knew,” according to Lunetta, but hearing it from their coach sparked something in the Red Devils. They outshot Williamsville East 14-4 in the third, and finally, with 3:05 left, one found the net. And then Lunetta’s found the net 36 seconds later.
“He pretty much told us what we already knew: we’re just as good, if not better, than the other team, and anyone can win on any given night, and two goals is nothing in the third period,” Lunetta said. “Everyone in there, in the locker room, they want to be in first place, and had we won this game, we’d be in first place in our division, put us in a pretty nice position for playoffs, and so we realized it just takes one period. Everyone went all out, and it worked.”
And while it didn’t work enough to earn Clarence the win, the comeback left Brooks and Lunetta feeling good about the tie.
“We would have liked to have a win,” Lunetta said. “It was definitely an attainable goal coming into this kind of game, but coming back in the third period like that feels just as good as a win.”
“Five minutes to go, we’re losing two-nothing, and we prevented them from getting two points, and we got a point,” Brooks said. “So that’s very successful, and so we’re very happy about that. We had the momentum. Little down that we didn’t finish it off, but it’s a good game.”
Down the hall from the Clarence locker room was one full of frustrated Williamsville East players and coaches.
“We need to find a way to win again,” Williamsville East assistant coach Rick Ruggiero said. “We make mental mistakes, and it ends up in the back of our net. We need a way to figure out how to win a hockey game. We’ve been struggling. We’re playing against good competition now, and when you make a mental mistake, it ends up in the back of our net. We gotta play better in the last three minutes — we were two-nothing. The effort’s there, but we have to play smarter. We have to play smarter hockey.”
One bright spot for the Flames was goaltender Evan Kumpf. His varsity debut was the Dec 5 game against Clarence, and he allowed a few goals he certainly would have liked to have back. But on Saturday, Kumpf stopped 35 of the 37 shots Clarence threw at him, and Ruggiero admired his confidence and composure.
“I thought he played well,” Ruggiero said. “He looks like he’s very composed. I thought he made the saves he had to make, and we didn’t give him much help on the two goals. We gave him odd-man rushes, and it comes back and bites us.”
On Monday night, the Flames are scheduled to face Kenmore East, whom they defeated 2-1 in their first game of the season on Dec. 3. Ruggiero hopes his team can break out of its funk in Monday’s game.
“We have to figure out how to win a hockey game,” Ruggiero said. “I think the kids are, I don’t know if they’re playing tentative or not at times, but we’re in a little funk, and we need to get out of it. We need to get a big goal, a big win, and it happens on Monday. We got a big game against East, so hopefully they’re gonna come ready to play.”