In a tale of two goaltenders, Lake Superior State’s Kevin Kapalka and Michigan’s Adam Janecyk battled through 65 minutes of regulation time and overtime hockey to a 2-2 stand-off.
It took six rounds of shootout chances for Lake Superior to record the win, 3-2, Saturday night at Yost Ice Arena.
Kevin McParland’s sixth round shootout goal, finding an opening on Janecyk’s stick side, clinched the win for Lake Superior. Domenic Monardo had scored in round three of the shootout to tie Michigan and send the shoot out to extra shooters.
After Michigan’s Luke Moffatt opened the shootout with a quick move on Kapalka to score for Michigan, Kapalka stopped five straight Michigan attempts in the shoot out round.
Kapalka turned aside 35 of 37 Michigan shots, while Janacyk stopped 34 of 36 Laker attempts.
“I thought Kevin [Kapalka] played really well,” said LSSU coach Jim Roque. “He played excellent tonight. Other than us scoring on him, he didn’t give up a goal to Michigan. He played great and he was outstanding in the shootout, too.”
Janecyk’s start was the first of his career, only having played two partial games this season after seeing no playing time as a freshman. Janecyk had replaced Michigan’s regular starting goaltender, Shawn Hunwick, on Friday night in the third period.
“There were a lot of question marks going into the game about Hunwick,” Michigan coach Red Berenson said. “Hunwick had a slight headache this morning and he wasn’t feeling himself, so we decided he shouldn’t play and Janecyk came in. There were a lot of question marks about Janecyk and I think he showed us he can play and give us a chance.
“I thought he [Janecyk] was more in sync with the game. He was more jerky last night. Tonight, he was smooth. He was in position. He looked more confident.”
After a scoreless first period, nearly 35 minutes of scoreless hockey ended in a flurry of goals in the final six minutes of the second period.
Michigan struck first at 14:40 of the middle stanza when David Wohlberg muscled his way toward the net on left wing and got a shot on Kapalka. The rebound bounced back into the net off Laker defensemen Kyle Haines’ skate.
Lake Superior replied with only 1:41 left in the second period. Kyle Jean carried the puck to the front of the Wolverine net, managed a shot that Janecyk blocked directly to the stick of Ben Power, who dumped the puck in the empty Wolverine cage to tie the score, 1-1.
Just 13 seconds later, Michigan regained the lead on another bounce off a Laker player. Alex Guptill’s backhand deflected off Dan Radke past Kapalka to reinstate the Michigan lead, 2-1, after 40 minutes.
Buddy Robinson’s goal only 2:58 into the third period tied the game for the Lakers at 2-2. Neither team could connect in the remaining 17 minutes of the third period, necessitating the overtime and the six round of shootout attempts.
“It was a hard-fought game,” summarized Berenson. “You knew it would be a close game. It’s disappointing to give up the lead in the third period.”
“Tonight, we scored all four goals, two of theirs went off our skates,” Roque added. “We battled back. I didn’t think we got a lot of good bounces. We battled through it. It was a huge win for us. We really needed it badly. It was a huge effort by our guys. You want to play good. We played really, really good tonight. It’ll go our way. You got to stay with it and our guys did tonight.”
