Zach O’Brien scored 3:34 into the second overtime period to give the Newfoundland Growlers a 3-2 win over the Brampton Beast Tuesday night in Brampton, Ont., giving the Growlers a 3-0 lead in their best-of-seven opening-round ECHL playoff series.
Newfoundland will look to complete the sweep when the teams meet Thursday night at the CAA Centre in Brampton.
The Growlers needed a third-period comeback to push Tuesday’s game into extra time.
Goals by Jonathan Racine, in the first period, and Aaron Luchuk, in the second, had staked the Beast to a 2-0 lead through 40 minutes, a lead supported once again by the solid netminding by Etienne Marcoux.
However, Hudson Elynuik, just reassigned to Newfoundland from the AHL’s Toronto Marlies, solved Marcoux 71 seconds into the third period and then assisted on Giorgio Estephan’s tying tally seven and a half minutes later.
The latter was the Growlers’ first power-play goal of the series.
Neither team scored in the first 20-minute overtime, when Marcoux stopped all 13 shots he faced in the frame and helped his team survive late-period penalty trouble when the Beast’s Jordan Henry (tripping) and David Pacan (delay of game) were sent off less than two minutes apart.
However, Newfoundland, which outshot Brampton 17-5 in the 23-plus minutes of OT, kept up the pressure in the second extra period, resulting in O’Brien’s game-winner.
It came on Newfoundland’s 58th shot of the contest.
For a second straight game, Marcoux was named the first star despite being the losing goaltender in an overtime decision. He had also earned the nod in a 2-1 loss Sunday night at Mile One Centre in St. John’s, where OT didn’t last nearly as long. In that one, Newfoundland’s Brady Ferguson scored just 18 seconds into additional time.
Marcoux’s Growlers, counterpart, Michael Garteig, was Tuesday’s second star on the strength of a 30-save performance. Garteig now boasts a 1.18 goals-against average and .955 save percentage through Newfoundland’s first three playoff wins.
O’Brien was the third star of the game, played before just under 2,100 fans.
Dog Bites
The Growlers’ Scott Pooley had 10 shots in the game … Elyniuk, who was one of six players on the Marlies’ roster listed as playoff-eligible for Newfoundland, took Matt Bradley’s place in the Growlers' lineup and bumped Todd Skirving to the reserve list. Newfoundland still has two openings on the reserve list …
Twitter: @telybrendan
