Wolves Win in Shootout on Firefighter Appreciation Night

by Jeff Barrett



Watertown, NY - Game number six of regular season meetings between the Wolves and Danbury Hat Tricks visited the Watertown Arena on Friday for the first half of a home and home series. All three of the previous games played in Watertown this season all went to overtime with one ending in a shootout.

Steven Klinck didn't take long to ignite the home crowd, slapping a rebound past Connor McCollum just 2:36 into the first period, assisted by Tate Leeson and Mark Bottero.

At the 9:02 mark, Bottero would add to the Wolves lead, lifting a shot over McCollum's shoulder making the score 2-0. The assist on the goal belonged to Tate Leeson.

At 16:45 of the opening frame, Trevor Lord sniped a nasty wrist shot over the glove of McCollum making it 3-0, assisted by Davide Gaeta and Trevor Grasby.

That's the way the period would end with Watertown outshooting Danbury 13-11.

Well, if period number one belonged to the Wolves, it's easy to say that Danbury controlled the second. William Berry got the visitors on the board at the 4:11 mark, beating Watertown keeper Anton Borodkin, assisted by Jacob Ratcliffe and Kyle Gonzalez.

Just over a minute later Dylan Hullaby added a second goal for the Hat Tricks, pulling them within one goal, with the assists going to Gleb Bandurkin and Chase Harwell.

Watertown would once again establish a 2 goal advantage on a Davide Gaeta goal assisted by Chris Nauts and Trevor Grasby at 10:13 of the frame, making the score 4-2.

But just over a minute later, the Hat Tricks Cory Anderson blasted a shot to the back of the net to bring Danbury back within one goal, 4-3, assisted by Aleksandr Gamzatov and Charlie Bedard.

Danbury outshot Watertown 11-9 in the second.

6:38 into the third period Dylan Hullaby would strike again, knotting the game at 4-4, and pulling the Hat Tricks even for the first time in the game. The helper on the goal belonged to Noah Robinson and Josh Newberg.

The rest of regulation would turn into a scoreless battle, with each team having to kill off a couple of penalties.

With the game tied at 4 each at the end of regulation, we headed to overtime for the fourth time this season between these two teams.

The extra five minutes of action couldn't decide a winner on this night, so the game headed to a shootout.

Josh Labelle was the first shooter for the Hat Tricks but was unable to slide the puck under Borodkin. Davide Gaeta would be Watertown's first shooter, and lifted a back handed a shot over McCollum giving the Wolves a one goal advantage. The Hat Tricks sent out Gleb Bandurkin, but once again, Borodkin was up to the challenge, and kept Danbury off the board. Tate Leeson was Watertown's second shooter, with an opportunity to be a hero, and he didn't let the hometown fans down, as he knifed a shot past McCollum, sending the Wolves to a 5-4 win.

Saturday evening the venue will shift to the Danbury Ice Arena where the two teams will battle once again in an Empire Division matchup, each trying to gain control of the number three spot, just past the midpoint of the season.