In a terrific defensive battle on Thursday night, the Mississippi RiverKings topped the Dayton Gems 3-2 in a shootout at the DeSoto Civic Center.  The win thwarted the Gems efforts to clinch a playoff berth as now their magic number is one point.

Box Score

The win for the RiverKings pushed them up into the fifth spot in the Berry Conference, one point ahead of Odessa and two points ahead of Arizona and marks the fourth time in five shootouts that Mississippi has prevailed.

The RiverKings win the season series against Dayton three games to one.

Mississippi started the scoring early with Matt Summers scoring his 25th of the year and fifth in his last six games.  Summers finished the game with a goal and an assist.

Dayton would methodically work their way into the lead thanks to a first period score from Nathan Oke on the power play and Chris Lipsett’s second period power play strike gave the Gems the lead after two periods. 

Dayton finished the game 2 for 7 with the man advantage.

In the third period, veteran Chris Richards, playing in his 698th CHL game, tied the game just over a minute into the frame with his 17th goal of the season.

The game eventually went to overtime and then to a shootout where Derek Landmesser’s score in the eighth round of the shootout served as his second game winning goal of the year.

Alexander Pechurskiy made 26 saves in the game and stopped seven of eight shooters in the shootout improving his record to 14-11-2.