A look at the stat sheet might say the San Diego Gulls dominated the opening game of their Western Conference final with the host Chicago Wolves.
The Gulls outshot Chicago in every period, including overtime, but when Cody Glass scored on a breakaway at the 14:03 mark of overtime the scoreboard read: Wolves 5, Gulls 4.
The victory gives Chicago a 1-0 lead in the best-of-seven series as the teams will return to the Allstate Arena in Rosemont, Ill., today for Game 2. Game 3 will be Wednesday in San Diego.
The Gulls had double-digit shot totals in every period and held Chicago to single digits for a 44-28 edge at the end of the night. However, Gulls veteran goalie Jeff Glass couldn’t stop the Wolves from scoring.
“We don’t get overly excited or overly down on anything,” said Gulls coach Dallas Eakins. “We understand these games are going to go long sometimes, we understand there’s going to swings of momentum.”
In regulation the Gulls seemed to be fighting an up-hill battle for most of the night.
Chicago broke the ice six minutes into the first period, but Corey Tropp scored his third goal of the playoffs with just 28 seconds left in the opening 20 minutes to tie it.
“I thought we were a little slow coming out of the gate, getting our feet underneath us with the travel and the time change,” said Eakins. “I thought we played well in spurts.
“The times we got ourselves into trouble is when we get hemmed in our own zone, which only happened a couple of times.
“Certainly, we’d love to close that one out, but that ice was not great at the end. That puck was bouncing all over the place on us.”
Then in the second period, the Wolves scored on a power play at the 10:05 mark, but once again the Gulls tied it late in the period when rookie Maxime Comtois scored at 18:51 and it was 2-2 at the second intermission.
It was the same old story in the third period as Chicago took a 3-2 lead at the 5:50 mark, but the Gulls came right back and even took the lead.
First, defenseman Andy Welinski scored at the 8:18 mark on the power play on assists from Justin Kloos and Sam Steel.
Then Comtois, a rookie, gave the Gulls their only lead of the night when he scored at 10:43 on an assist from Adam Cracknell. It was the fifth goal of the playoffs for Comtois.
“We’ve been through enough now,” said Eakins of coming back three times in regulation.
“Not much will change for (today). It’ll be right now, get rest, get rehydrated, get some fuel back in. We’ll make a couple of minor adjustments and we’ll ride again.”
The Wolves would send the game to overtime a little over six minutes later when Nic Hague scored at 16:55.
“Lots to learn from this game,” said the veteran Cracknell afterward. “It’s a best-of-seven, nothing to panic about. You learn from it, move on, and get back at it (today).”
