Nine players finished the night for each team as the South Carolina Stingrays pushed their series with the Adirondack Thunder to a series-deciding Game 7. Stephan Vigier scored twice in the 4-1 win and the end of the game featured five fights to shorten the benches.
Game 7 will be tomorrow night at the North Charleston Coliseum.
Joe Devin scored the only even strength goal of the entire game in the early first period. Off a faceoff victory by Kelly Zajac, the puck came right to Devin for a quick wrist shot past Ken Appleby.
Zajac continued his passing perfection, fielding a delivery from Spencer Humphries behind the net before hitting a net-crashing Vigier.
On a five-on-three given up by South Carolina, Mathieu Broduer teed off from the point for the lone goal by Adirondack. The Rays went into the first intermission up 2-1.
In the second period, the Adirondack Thunder shot twice at Mark Dekanich, once while shorthanded. Austin Fyten recorded three blocked shots in the first and added to that with a goal in the second. Defensemen Nick D’Agostino and Bobby Shea set him up on the extra-man advantage.
Vigier put the game away on a two-man advantage after getting a pass in his wheelhouse from Zajac. Heading into the final frame, the Stingrays held a three-goal edge and a 12-shot upper-hand.
After a 25 minute delay to replace a piece of glass by the penalty box, the rough stuff began. The Stingrays and Thunder traded hard hits all night, but it got ugly in the final two minutes of the third period. It all began with none other than Trevor Gillies.
The former New York Islanders enforcer had enough of getting repeatedly shoved by Ryan Lomberg, so they scrapped. With both players on their knees, Gillies made sure to deliver the final blow before the linesemen stepped in to separate them.
15 seconds later, Mitchell Heard crosschecked Jared Staal in the back, drawing Spencer Humphries to have a few choice words for him. Heard went after, who looked wholly uninterested in fighting until some punches hit him.
After the next faceoff, Dana Fraser crosschecked Vigier twice before Shea jumped in to protect him. The two went for a long tango before Shea landed a knockout blow on Fraser. Play-by-play man Zack Fisch finally got to say “DOWN GOES FRASER.” Shea encouraged the crowd to get behind the Rays for the final 47 seconds.
Immediately after the puck dropped to restart play, two more fights broke out. Gunnar Hughes jumped Vigier and took down the goal scorer while Luke Curadi and Marcus Perrier swung for a few seconds before voluntarily stopping. Joey Leach and Ben Johnson got tossed from the remainder of the game for sparring while a referee held them up.
Out of all that, the Stingrays and Thunder resumed four-on-four play… until Terrence Wallin delivered an illegal check to the head of Jared Staal. With the South Carolina trainer in the locker room with all the fighters, the trainer for Adirondack came out to check on Staal. He eventually skated to the bench on his own power.
David Pacan won the faceoff and Austin Fyten backpedaled away to finish off the final 11 seconds. The teams ended the game with 120 combined penalty minutes.
Dekanich, on his 30th birthday, made 16 saves on 17 shots; Appleby stopped 21 of 25.
