Zach O’Brien scored at 4:13 of the third overtime — 17th-longest game in AHL history, five seconds away from 16th — and Manchester opened the series with a 4-3 win over Wilkes-Barre/Scranton. Lucky them, they play Game 2 in like an hour and a half.
They went to overtime in Hershey as well, but the visitors won that one: Chris Bourque scored at 16:47 of the boring old first OT to give Hartford a lead in the series with a 2-1 win. Ryan Haggerty drew back in for the Wolf Pack with Ryan Bourque up with the Rangers (who are a loss away from summertime). Game 2 is Friday before they go back to, um, Worcester.
Out west, Rockford tied it up twice, but Teemu Pulkkinen scored his third goal with 2:46 to go, and Grand Rapids drew first blood. They meet again Friday. he Utica-OKC series begins Thursday.
Multiple overtime was epidemic: Florida (ECHL) kept its season alive on Corey Trivino’s goal at 45:38 of overtime. South Carolina still leads the series 3-1.
At Worlds, Canada took charge in the other pool with a 6-4 win over Sweden. Sweden led 3-0 after one and, after the Canadians came all the way back, 4-3. But Patrick Wiercioch, Tyler Ennis and (empty-net) Tyler Seguin scored for Canada in the third.
In the Americans’ pool, Russia came back with a win over Denmark, and Norway dropped an upset on Slovakia, coming back from 2-0 down to win 3-2. In the other pool, Latvia beat Switzerland on an overtime goal by former Binghamton Senator Kaspars Daugavins.
It strikes me late that I think he mentioned this on Twitter the other day, but Darien’s Kevin Sullivan, NCAA champ with Union in 2014, will play in France next year. (H/T: Elite Prospects.) Sullivan played in the ECHL this season. That in addition to, if you missed it this morning, John Persson’s departure for Sweden for the next two years.
RIP, Jim Wright.
And sad as it will be to see Jonathan Bombulie leaving the beat in this league, can’t wait to read him on The Show. Congratulations and all the best to him. (And a decent night’s sleep tonight after triple overtime.)