The Fergus Falls Otters scored two late third period goals to beat the Crookston Pirate Boys Hockey team 6-4 in a game played at the Crookston Sports Center in Crookston.
1st Period-
The opening minutes of Saturday’s game set the pace that persisted through the final buzzer as both teams came out flying, peppered the net and leveled big, clean hits up and down the ice. Midway through the first period Sam Overgaard was knocked down on a big hit behind the Pirate goal, he got up and tried to hit the Otters Isaac Young, who rolled out of the check and Overgaard instead bumped into a teammate and went down again. Showing frustration, Overgaard followed Young out of the zone and slashed the stick out of Young’s hands for which he received a two-minute minor, and the game’s first power play went to Fergus Falls. As has been the case over the last several games, the Pirate penalty kill continued to show improvement, with the first of three successful penalty kills limiting Fergus Falls to just four shots in three power-play opportunities.
Fergus Falls would strike first when Ian Richards took a pass from Mike DeBrito at the right point, Richards took one step off the blue line and wired a wrist shot through traffic into the upper right corner of the net, beating a screened off Noah Dragseth for a 1-0 lead with 4:39 to go in the period. The Pirates had several opportunities to score in the first period, primarily off the individual efforts of Eric Delorme, who on three separate occasions dangled the puck around an Otter defenseman for a scoring opportunity. On the third Delorme played the puck to the outside of the defender and used the toe of his stick to tip the pass back inside as he slipped inside the defenseman. Delorme picked the puck back up and tried to turn the puck over to his backhand only to have it roll off his stick into the slot between the hash marks. Ben Andringa, who was following the play chipped at the puck and was able to get just enough of it to send it fluttering over the shoulder of the Otters goaltender to tie the game 1-1 with 35 seconds left in the first. “Eric can create a lot, and you get like that who is so good with the puck he is tough to defend,” said Pirate coach Josh Hardy. “His linemates did a good job of getting to the net and finding ways to help him out we to just couldn’t find ways to crack that back of the net as many times as we needed to.”
2nd Period-
The Pirates came out flying to open up the first 1:30 of the second period getting five shots on goal. But Fergus Falls would break through first with a flurry off the rush in front of Dragseth that saw Logan Schake pick up a rebound off a blocked shot from Matthew Niblock and Schake stuffed it past Dragseth for a 2-1 lead with 15:16 to go in the period. The Pirates went on the power play with 13:36 to go but were unable to beat Fergus Falls’ Scott Van Voorhis before the penalty expired. With 10:39 to go Brock Heppner chipped a puck up the boards to Delorme who lifted a shot towards the goal that was deflected 10 feet in front of the net by an Otter at a 45-degree angle downwards and Van Voorhis was unable to recover in time to drop down for the save. For Delorme, it was his tenth of the season and tied the game at 2-2. Both teams continued to run up and down the ice over the final 10:39 of the period, but neither goalie would be beaten again in the second as they combined to stop 25 of 27 shots in the second.
3rd Period-
The third period would see a flurry of goals. Fergus Falls scored first just 18 seconds into the period, and Ian Richards skated in off the opening faceoff, fired a shot on Dragseth and Young flipped the rebound to the back of the net. The Pirates answered just 55 seconds later with 15:47 to go when Delorme picked off a clearing attempt by Fergus Falls. Delorme fired a wrist shot from the right circle that went wide of the net, bounced off the end boards back out to the left of the goal. The Otters’ Colton Partain tried to pick up the puck and skate behind his net, but the puck was on its edge and rolled off his stick just inside the left post to tie the game 3-3. Delorme was credited with an unassisted goal, his second of the night and team-leading 11th of the season.
The Pirates killed off another penalty before DeBrito picked up a loose puck in the neutral zone, got a step on Sam Overgaard and skated in down the right side. DeBrito had his choice between firing a shot on goal or centering a pass to Richards crashing the net inside of Ty Hamre. DeBrito centered a pass, and Richards redirected it top shelf to Dragseth’s stick side giving Fergus Falls a 4-3 lead with 10:49 to play. The Pirates would answer just 22 seconds later when Joey Doda fed a pass out front from the left corner and Andringa scored his second of the night and sixth of the season, beating Van Voorhis to the glove side. With 5:59 to play Andringa checked the Otters Sterling Andrews, who was carrying the puck, behind the Pirate goal the puck popped in the air out in front of the net and Dragseth couldn’t find it. Sam Overgaard tried to protect his goalie by batting the puck out of midair but mistimed it slightly, and the puck bounced off the back of his fingers into the goal to give Fergus Falls a 5-4 lead, on what would be the game-winner. “Sam made the right play with the puck popping out front and Dragseth not knowing where it was it just ended up in the net,” said Hardy. “I was planning to call a time-out there no matter what, we’d been running around for 45 seconds there, we were tired, and we got a bad bounce there, and those are tough to come back from.”
Following the Pirate time-out, the Otters quickly put the puck on net, and Dragseth covered it up for a faceoff to his right. Ian Richards won the offensive zone faceoff cleanly to himself and skated towards the goal line before lifting a backhand shot over Dragseth to make it 6-4, just nine seconds after reclaiming the lead. “The third is a difficult period for us with a short bench and guys are getting tired. You’d like to think by this point in the season we were starting to find our legs a little bit,” said Hardy. “Hopefully in the next week or two we’ll start to play a little bit better in the third, both nights this weekend we had some fluky goals in the third, but we put ourselves in some bad situations with not getting the puck cleared when we have a chance.”
Jack Ricord replaced Dragseth after the Otters final goal facing one shot over the next 2:20. Ricord was pulled for the extra skater with 2:30 to play and while the Pirates held possession of the puck for most the final 2:30, they were unable to beat Van Voorhis to draw any closer falling 6-4.
The Pirates fall to 2-10-1 and will be back in action on Tuesday when they travel to Bemidji for a 7:30 p.m. puck drop with the Lumberjacks. Fergus Falls improves to 5-6-2.
| Scoring | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | Final |
| Fergus Falls | 1 | 1 | 4 | 6 |
| CROOKSTON | 1 | 1 | 2 | 4 |
1st Period
4:39 – Fergus Falls – Ian Richards (Mike DeBrito)
0:34.3- Crookston – Ben Andringa (5)(Eric Delorme, Jack Doda)
2nd Period
15:16 – Fergus Falls – Logan Schake (Matthew Niblock, Cole Zierden)
10:39 – Crookston – Eric Delorme (10)(Brock Heppner)
3rd Period
16:46 – Fergus Falls – Isaac Young (Ian Richards)
15:51 – Crookston – Eric Delorme (11) (unassisted)
10:49 – Fergus Falls -Ian Richards (Mike DeBrito)
10:27 – Crookston – Ben Andringa (6) (Joey Doda, Ty Hamre)
5:59 – Fergus Falls – Sterling Andrews (Logan Schake)
5:50 – Fergus Falls – Ian Richards (unassisted)
| Saves | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | Total |
| Scott Van Voorhis – FF | 6 | 12 | 8 | 26 |
| Noah Dragseth-Crox | 7 | 13 | 4 | 24 |
| Jack Ricord – Crox | X | X | 1 | 1 |
