Events rapidly approached a train wreck at the road rink for the Alaska Aces in the late going Wednesday night, right up to the time when the looming disaster transformed into the divine.
The Aces somehow mustered an improbable 5-4 overtime victory against the Colorado Eagles in Loveland.
All it took — after squandering a pair of two-goal leads, giving up three third-period goals and surrendering the lead — was Stephen Perfetto's extra-attacker equalizer with a mere 1.2 seconds left in regulation and Danny Moynihan's dagger in extra time.
And — exhale.
The Aces' unlikely victory in the seventh game of a 10-game road trip from hockey hell — they are 4-2-1 thus far — was pivotal to their pursuit of the last playoff spot in the ECHL's Mountain Division.
Utah's 4-3 victory at Florida to open a three-game road trip pulled the Grizzlies within one point of the fourth-place Aces. But Alaska's escape from the Budweiser Events Center with two points in pocket pushed its gap on Utah back to three points. Missouri lurks five points behind the Aces.
"We're battling, and we need to continue that,'' Aces coach Rob Murray said by cellphone. "It wasn't pretty, but it doesn't matter.''
Alaska (29-20-8) and Missouri have each played 57 games to Utah's 59. The Aces (66 points) and Mavericks (61 points) each have 15 games left, and the Grizzlies (63 points) have 13 remaining.
For two periods, the Aces appeared locked in — hence their leads of 2-0 and 3-1.
Rookie Charlie Sampair scored his first pro goal to open the scoring and Tyler Shattock's marker three minutes into the second period earned the Aces a 2-0 lead. Colorado rookie Julien Nantel, in his ECHL debut after being sent down from San Antonio of the American Hockey League, cut Alaska's lead to 2-1 just 81 seconds after Shattock's goal. But Perfetto snapped his six-game goal drought — granted, he missed three games with an upper-body injury in that stretch — to give the Aces a 3-1 lead that lasted through the second period.
Yet, things unraveled on the Aces in the third period. Colorado defenseman Sam Jardine scored 44 seconds in. And though the Aces killed a Colorado two-man advantage that lasted 77 seconds midway through the period, Nantel forged a 3-3 tie on a deflection with three seconds left on his club's one-man advantage.
Less than four minutes later, Matt Register, the ECHL's leading scorer among defenseman, furnished Colorado its lone lead of the night at 4-3.
Still, Perfetto scored off a Tim Coffman feed in the waning ticks of regulation to send the game to overtime and extend Coffman's career-best point streak to 10 games.
"The pass was probably three inches off the ice and Stephen just knocked it down and got off a quick shot,'' Murray said. "It was such a skill play, and we hadn't had that for a good 15 or 20 minutes, since the start of the third.''
Moynihan's game-winning goal was his 20th goal of the season and gives the Aces four players with 20 or more goals. Injured Peter Sivak — he missed his 15th consecutive game with a lower-body injury — leads the way with 32 goals, Perfetto has 27 and Coffman 23.
The Aces now head to South Dakota for games Friday and Saturday nights against the Rapid City Rush. They'll board their bus shortly after Saturday's game and return to Loveland — that's a roughly seven-hour journey — for a road trip-ending matinee against the Eagles on Sunday.
Shuffling the deck
Perfetto's two-goal game was his eighth of the season and doubled as his 21st multiple-point game — all in 48 games played.
Perfetto's eight shots on goal tied for the second-most in his two-season ECHL career. His career-high of nine shots came against Colorado in a 4-1 win on New Year's Eve. He also scored two goals in that game.
Sampair's eight shots on goal marked a career-high for the rookie winger.
Coffman has delivered 7-10—17 totals in his 10-game point streak.
Defenseman Nolan Descoteaux, who assisted on Perfetto's game-tying goal, pushed his point streak to four games (2-4—6).
Colorado, which last week ran its winning streak to 17 games, tying the second-longest in league history, is 0-1-1 in the last two games. Still, the Eagles own a six-point cushion on two-time defending Kelly Cup champion Allen atop the Mountain Division.
Colorado's Casey Pierro-Zabotel had an assist to push his point streak to nine games (2-13—15).
Aces 1 2 1 1 — 5
Colorado 0 1 3 0 — 4
First Period — 1, Aces, Sampair 1, 8:05. Penalties — Zahn, Colorado (hooking), 2:46; Zimmerman, Colorado (roughing), 16:37; Shattock, Aces (roughing), 16:37; Coffman, Aces (slashing), 19:01.
Second Period — 2, Aces, Shattock 11 (Wallace, Stewart), 2:55; 3, Colorado, Nantel 1 (Register, Salazar), 4:16; 4, Aces, Perfetto 26 (Laplante), 16:42. Penalties — Bootland, Colorado, minor-major, served by Lazo (instigator, fighting), 17:03; Stewart, Aces, major (fighting), 17:03; Zahn, Colorado, major (fighting), 18:25; Laplante, Aces, major (fighting), 18:25.
Third Period — 5, Colorado, Jardine 3 (Pierro-Zabotel, Salazar), :44; 6, Colorado, Nantel 2 (Jardine, Lazo), 11:59 (pp); 7, Colorado, Register 14 (Garbowsky, Lazo), 14:27; 8, Aces, Perfetto 27 (Coffman, Descoteaux), 19:58 (ea). Penalties — Descoteaux, Aces (tripping), 6:10; Trenz, Aces (tripping), 9:19; Jones, Aces (high-sticking), 10:02; Zimmerman, Colorado, minor-major-game misconduct (instigator, fighting), 15:28; Van Allen, Aces, minor-major (goaltender interference, fighting), 15:28.
Overtime — 9, Aces, Moynihan 20 (Jones), 2:26. Penalties — None.
Shots on goal — Aces 17-14-9-3—43. Colorado 7-14-12-3—36.
Power-play Opportunities — Aces 0 of 2. Colorado 1 of 4.
Goalies — Aces, Carr, 15-14-3 (36 shots-32 saves). Colorado, Saunders, 26-6-1 (43-38).
A — 4,124 (5,289). T — 2:43.
Referee — Mike Sheehan. Linesmen — Seth Mukai, Robert Keltie.