Article Courtesy of Kenton Dyck of Steinbachonline.com – Pictures Courtesy of Adeline Loewen
The Steinbach Pistons surrendered two goals in less than a minute and fell to the Portage Terriers 3-2 on Wednesday night.
Both Brock Aiken for Portage and Roman Bengert for Steinbach put on a clinic in the first period as both goalies were tested and passed with flying colours. The period ended deadlocked 0-0.
In the second, Aiken coughed up the puck behind the net as Drew Anderson broke up the clearing attempt and fired it over to an open Braden Purtill who slipped it into the empty cage for a 1-0 Steinbach lead. Purtill leads the Pistons with 6 goals in the playoffs.
In the third, a bouncing puck found the stick of a Terrier left all alone in front and the game was tied at 1-1.
Later in the same period, Riley Bruce kept the puck in at the point and fired it towards the wide side of the net. A perfect deflection from Jack Johnson found the back of the net to give Steinbach a 2-1 lead.Landon Plett also picked up an assist on Johnson’s first goal of the playoffs.
Steinbach had a chance to seal the game late with the Portage net empty but the puck flipped on the Pistons players stick and the shot fluttered wide.
Portage used that to their advantage and scored a seeing-eye shot from the point that went off the crossbar and in to tie the game with just over a minute remaining.
With under 30 seconds to play, the Pistons had an offensive zone faceoff, won it clean but the point shot was wide of the net. Portage collected the loose puck and stormed down the ice and snapped home a wrist shot on a 2 on 1 to make it 3-2 Terriers.
The Pistons never got another shot on goal and now trail in the series 2-1 heading back to Portage on Friday night.