Pistons rookie goaltender Matt Radomsky collected his first MJHL shutout in Friday night’s 5-0 win over the Virden Oil Capitals.
His solid 19 save performance was enough to earn his third victory of the season and be named the game’s first star. Radomsky had this to say about his performance this evening. “It feels great, my team played a full sixty minutes in front of me, they really helped me out today.”
The team had one of their best defensive performances of the season, with few mistakes except for one bad giveaway leading to a breakaway by Virden’s Mack Hardy. However, Radomsky’s fast glove and intuition led to a his best save of the game. “The angle of his stick made it look like he was going to go glove,” said the 17 year-old netminder. “I just did the one knee down, like Henrik Lundqvist and got a piece of it.”
The first period was a fast-paced opening to the game, and this pace indirectly led to a testy double-minor for High Sticking to Will Koop of the Pistons. With the Oil Caps on the power play for four minutes, Radomsky made some of his biggest saves of the evening, keeping the score even.
This was until Mackenzie Graham broke the deadlock with his team-leading 11th goal of the season inside the last minute of the first period.
Graham’s goal clearly shifted the momentum on the ice going into the intermission as the Pistons would score three more goals in the second. Bradley Schoonbaert scored on the powerplay to extend the lead to 2-0, and just twenty-two seconds later Steinbach native Darby Gula truly put the game out of reach of Virden with his second goal of the season.
However, the goal of the evening goes to Vaughn Dupre for his tap-in after Scott Petkau used his head, soccer-style, to assist on the night’s fourth Steinbach goal.
This would ultimately lead to the end of the night for Virden starter Marc Audet, who would give up four goals on just 16 shots. Charter Chorney’s second goal of the season would help the Pistons round off a scrappy yet decisive fifteenth win of the campaign.
The Pistons will be back at it again on Sunday night the 6th of November, to face off against the Waywayseecappo Wolverines at the T.G. Smith Centre. Puck drops at 7:00pm.
Tonight’s Three Stars
1st-Matt Radomsky (Steinbach) 19 SV 19SH SO
2nd-Mackenzie Graham (Stienbach) 1 Goals 1 Assists
3rd-Tyson McConnell (Steinbach) 2 Assists