Game 4 Post Game Notes

For Immediate Release
Saturday, May 5, 2012

Wichita 4 at Fort Wayne 3
at the Allen County War Memorial Coliseum

Box Score | Game Live

Series: Komets lead best-of-7 series 3-1

Next Game: Game 5 – Monday, May 7 at Fort Wayne (7:30 PM EST)

Three Stars:
1. Thomas Beauregard (WIC), 1 goal, 1 assist, +2
2. Aaron Davis (WIC), 1 goal, 1 assist,  +2
3. Jean-Michel Rizk (FTW), 1 goal, E

Goaltenders:
FTW- Nick Boucher (Loss- 17 saves,  4 goals allowed)
WIC- Bryan Hogan (Win- 36 saves, 3 goals allowed)

Goals:
FTW: 2-1-0=3
WIC: 2-1-1=4

Shots:
FTW: 19-10-10=39
WIC: 13-5-3=21

In front of a huge crowd of 10,480 in Fort Wayne, the Wichita Thunder would hear no more talk of a sweep as they battled back from three separate one-goal deficits and ultimately scored the game winning goal at the midway point of the third period to earn the win 4-3 and capture their first victory in the best-of-7 Ray Miron Presidents’ Cup Finals.

With the series now sitting at 3-1 in favor of the Komets, who are trying to win their ninth franchise title, the scene will focus in on a critical Game 5 on Monday night, the final contest in Indiana, which with a Thunder win would send the series back to Kansas for Game’s 6 and 7 next weekend.

Things looked dire on several occasions for the Thunder who never quit and fought until the end when the Komets looked to certainly be in a spot to tie things with a couple of goal posts hit and a near empty net with five seconds remaining that the shot just simply missed the net.

The Thunder found themselves in a tough spot in the game’s opening seconds when it was determined that a player had put their hand on the puck in the goal crease resulting in a penalty shot for Fort Wayne.  The playoffs leading scorer, Mike Vaskivuo, took the shot and beat Bryan Hogan just 19 seconds into the game giving the Komets the 1-0 lead. 

Fort Wayne was 8-1 in the post-season entering the game when scoring the first goal of the game.

Wichita would battle back with the welcomed site of Daniel Tetrault scoring a power play goal at the 6:39 mark.  The Thunder had connected on just 4 of 53 man advantages entering Game 4 (7.5%).  They finished 1 for 6 in Game 4 but looked a bit more threatening with the power play than they had in the first three games of the series.

Fort Wayne would regain the lead late in the period with Chris Auger scoring on the power play earning his league-best 10th playoff goal (Auger has six goals in the last five games).

Once again, the Thunder would show their heart tying the game in the final minute of the opening period when Matt Summers connected for the third time in the last two games making the score 2-2 after 20 minutes.

Each team would strike in the middle period with Jean-Michel Rizk giving the Komets their third lead of the night at the  5:52 mark only to be matched by Aaron Davis at the 13:40 mark making the score three-all at the end of two frames.

In the third period, the Thunder would take their first lead of the night and their first since the first period of Game 2 when Thomas Beauregard took a Travis Wight pass and buried is behind Nick Boucher for his seventh goal of the playoffs.

Fort Wayne had many chances in the second and third periods hitting a half-dozen posts and finding Hogan to be up to the challenge.

The Komets finished 2 for 8 on the power play in the game.

Hogan finished with 36 saves earning his first professional post-season win.

Boucher saw his five-game win streak snapped with his 17 save performance.

The teams will play Game 5 of the Finals on Monday night in Fort Wayne.