Adirondack Thunder One Win From East Conference Final

The Adirondack Thunder are just one win away from advancing to the Kelly Cup Eastern Conference Final after edging the South Carolina Stingrays 3-2 in overtime on Saturday evening at the Glens Falls Civic Center. (Thunder website)

Ben Johnson got the scoring started at 11:14 into the 1st period after Greg Wolfe battled for the puck behind the net and then got it to Michael Kirkpatrick who fed it to Johnson, wide open in the circle for his 2nd goal of the playoffs.

Greg Wolfe extended the Thunder lead to 2-0 with about a minute left in the 1st period as he redirected a Mitchell Heard pass past a sprawling Stingrays goaltender for his 6th goal of the playoffs. The assist was also Heard's 6th assist and 10th point of the playoffs.

The South Carolina Stingrays were held scoreless until around the midway point of the 2nd period when Caleb Herbert tapped in a pass from Austin Fyten behind the net to cut the Thunder lead to 2-1.

Then, with just over six minutes left in the game, Spencer Humphries fired a wrist-shot from the high slot past Thunder goaltender Ken Appleby for his 1st of the playoffs to tie the game 2-2 and eventually send the game into overtime.

Gunnar Hughes would be the overtime hero at the 11:21 mark of the 1st overtime period as he took feeds from Patch Alber and Terrence Wallin and flicked a wrist-shot into the Stingrays net to give the Thunder the win and a chance to close out the series and advance on Tuesday back in South Carolina.

Thunder goalie Ken Appleby stopped 28 of 30 shots to pick up his 7th win of the playoffs and has a 2.21 goals against average and 0.923 save percentage.

Check out the game summary for more stats and information.

by BizzleJ