After a loss to Central Oklahoma, Arizona came out to win 5-3 against ranked No. 19 Oklahoma. This is the Cat’s seventh win of the season so they rise to a win percentage of .636.
Senior goaltender Austin Wilson started his second game of the series, and was just as fresh, allowing just three goals, two of which were when Arizona was a man down.
Arizona had a 4-1 advantage heading into the third with goals from Griffin Dyne, Ethan Stahlhuth, Roy Grandov and Justin Plumhoff. Grandov’s goal was on a breakaway on the penalty kill, and Plumhoff’s was on the power play.
Midway through the third, Arizona’s Chris Westlund was called for a five minute major for contact with the head and tossed for the rest of the period with a game misconduct. He wasn’t pleased about the call and left the ice, angrily making a remark about the referee, as Oklahoma went on to have a man advantage for five minutes.
The play Westlund made contact with laid on the ground for several minutes, holding his head, while Arizona’s team doctor attended to him on the ice. He was slow to rise and was helped off the ice by the doctor and received applause from all in attendance. He held his head low and had a hand to it as he skated off.
With 2:56 left to go in Westlund’s penalty, Oklahoma capitalized. Oklahoma was then down by two, a narrow deficit they hadn’t seen since the end of the first period. In the dying seconds of the penalty, they scored again making the score, 4-3, Arizona.
With minutes left to go on the game clock, Oklahoma pulled their goalie for an extra attacker, but Griffin Dyne sealed the game with an empty netter in the final moments of the game to win it 5-3.
The Wildcats looked different than they did against Central Oklahoma Thursday night. Arizona was back more to playing their style, a speedy forecheck.
“I thought we were better off the puck, guys crashing the net and we saw guys like Dyer [Griffin Dyne] and Stahlly [Ethan Stahlhuth] get rewarded with goals like that,” Arizona head coach Berman said.
The team was also more effectively defensively. They ran into some penalty trouble, but odd-man rushes, especially on Arizona’s power play, and opportunities for Oklahoma were minimized. In fact, it was Arizona getting the short-handed opportunities.
“We have a breakout or a forecheck, always have three staying high and locking on,” assistant coach John Hogan said, “I think we did a lot better doing that today than yesterday.”
Arizona will be suiting up against Oklahoma again on Saturday, Oct. 28 for the final game of the weekend. It is another early 2 p.m. start and will be their third game in a span of 48 hours.
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