DRYDEN – Twenty minutes into Game 5, the Dryden Ice Dogs were going nowhere fast.
Down 3-0 to a championship-ready Kam River Fighting Walleye squad, they were desperate to find some way to battle back on Saturday night to avoid being relegated to runner-up status in the 2025 Superior International Junior Hockey League playoffs.
Kam River, needing a win to claim its second Bill Salonen Cup title in three seasons, looked ready to accept the crown, after Daxton Lang and Zach Baumann, who potted a pair of goals, scored three times in a 12-minute span, silencing the crowd at the Dryden Memorial Arena.
The Ice Dogs, however, weren’t ready to give up on their championship bid.
Max Roby finally solved Ashton Sadauskas at the 11:41 mark of the second and three minutes later Evan Mayer popped one home, cutting Kam River’s lead to the narrowest of margins.
Then, with just 3:06 to go in the second, Emmanuel Nkombou appeared to have scored the equalizer.
The goal was added to the scoreboard tally, but, with Kam River’s Brodie McLeon prostrate on the ice, the on-ice officials gathered by the timekeeper’s box, and after careful deliberation, wiped away the tally, instead handing Nkombou a head contact major, which comes with an automatic game misconduct.
No worries.
Seventy-four seconds into the third, the Ice Dogs still down a body, Elias Eisenbarth responded, beating Sadauskas on a shorthanded chance, evening the score 3-3.
It went to overtime, and that’s when Payton Hu went to work, grabbing a Sam Sargent turnover at the Kam River blueline. Hemoved in alone on Sadauskas and buried the winner, earning Dryden a 4-3, season-saving triumph, the goal coming at the 10:40 mark on the 51st shot they fired at the Fighting Walleye net.
“It was my first overtime goal and it came down to this,” said Hu, a Surrey, B.C. native who scored 23 times during the regular season, his first in Dryden.
“We’ve been battling adversity all year, so it wasn’t anything different for us.”
Hu said he was moments from leaving the ice for a line change when the hockey gods smiled at him.
“The next thing you know, the pucks on my stick and no one’s in front of me. So, I decided to put the puck in the net.”
The key, said Dryden coach Jake Gushue, was never giving up, even when things seemed darkest.
“The boys stuck with it. I knew they had an extra gear going into the second period and they really found it. They stuck with it, really upped our game for the last two periods and we got rewarded for it.”
Having a goal taken off the board stung, but once again, the team used it as motivation, rather than take on a woe-is-me collective attitude.
“That one was out of our control,” Gushue said. “We knew we could come back and get the job done, regardless. We’ve been working on our mental discipline and toughness all year. That was just a real test of our character and we were able to fight through and get it done.”
The Ice Dogs now trail the best-of-seven series 3-2, and will have to win Tuesday night at Norwest Arena, and then again on Thursday at home, to capture their first SIJHL title in seven years.
Fighting Walleye coach Larry Wintoneak said his team let up at the wrong time, and it cost them, forcing them to play at least one more contest for a shot at their second title in three seasons.
“Maybe they thought it was a little too easy, to come in with a 3-0 lead. We kind of got out of sorts and we got a little sloppy and there things that we did that were very uncharacteristic,” said Wintoneak, who helped Dryden win the very first SIJHL title, coaching the then fledgling team to its 2002 championship.
“They’re a good hockey team and you better be on your toes when you play them. They were not going to go away.”
Game 6 is Tuesday at 7 p.m. at the Norwest Arena.
FIRST PERIOD
Scoring: 1. Kam River, Lang 3 (Kukko, Debray) 4:00. 2. Kam River, Baumann 4 (Liang) 12:40. 3. Kam River, Baumann 5 (Poddubny) 16:14. Penalties: Nkombou DRY (roughing) 13:45, Nkombou DRY (interference) 17:12, Lachimea KRW (holding) 18:41.
SECOND PERIOD
Scoring: 4. Dryden, Roby (Hu, Eisenbarth) 11:41. 5. Dryden, Mayer (Oatman, Wales) 14:38. Penalties: Baumann KRW, Oatman DRY (roughing) 5:02, Kukko KRW (boarding) 15:47, Nkombou DRY (head contact, game misconduct, served by Gustafson) 16:54.
THIRD PERIOD
Scoring: 6. Dryden, Eisenbarth 3 (Paulsen) 1:14 sh. Penalties: Gustafson DRY (interference) 2:19.
OVERTIME
Scoring: 7. Dryden, Hu 3 (unassisted) 10:40. Penalties: None.
GAME DATA – SOG – Kam River 24-11-10-5-50, Dryden 12-20-16-3-51; Power plays (goals-chances) – Kam River (0-2), Dryden (0-1); Goaltenders – Kam River: Ashton Sadauskas, Dryden: Noah Davis; A: 768.
This post was originally published on this site be sure to check out more of their content.
