ROCHESTER, Minn. – It turned out to be a wild night in Rochester Friday night. After trailing 2-0 after two periods, the Grizzlies scored five goals in the third period to come back and win 5-4 over the Breezy Point North Stars. The win came after a tough loss Wednesday to Granite City.
The Grizzlies (23-9-0-0) started off with a lot of shots on North Stars goalie Dan Fielding but weren’t able to put one past. Breezy Point would get a power play chance at 12:08 of the first. Casey Hormann finished off a nice passing play Cooper Hoheisel to give the North Stars the lead. Rochester would actually out-shoot Breezy Point 17-7 in the first period.
The second period wasn’t much different for Rochester as Jacob Berkowitz scored the second power play goal of the night for Breezy Point. Reid Morin had the point shot and Berkowitz tipped it past Rochester goalie Liam Kelly, putting the Grizzlies in a 2-0 hole after two.
“It’s getting to be a broken record with the slow starts. I actually thought the first period we were pretty good. We got caught puck watching on the power play goal. Second period we had about three or four power plays. When you’re on the power play you tend to not work that hard,” said said Head Coach Casey Mignone.
It was a completely different third period for the Grizzlies, however. Vladislav Sorokin opened the scoring for Rochester with his 29th of the season. The goal came at the 2:29 mark of the third and sparked some life into the Grizzlies.
“Once Vlad scored everyone got super excited. We were very upbeat and out there hollering at each other. It was high intensity and we just wanted to keep burying goals,” said Logan Olson.
Lucas Newman tied it up after a great back door feed from Sorokin. The goal came at the 6:55 mark of the third and sprung some life into the crowd at the Rec Center. The North Stars would come back with their third power play goal of the game as Lukas Brockman knocked home a rebound to regain the lead.
Olson finally cracked the brief power play slump for the Grizzlies by scoring his second of the year, tying the game at the 14:22 mark of the third. That tie didn’t last long as Josh Hoffman added his second of the year, putting the Grizzlies up one.
Not even that one-goal lead lasted all that long as Kory Potach added to the scoresheet after a great feed from Joey Fodstad.
“It felt great. I kind of got the monkey off my back. Missing 15, 16 games with an injury, it’s tough. To comeback after being down today and win it, eventually scoring the goal to ice the game, it feels great,” said Potach.
Hoheisel scored the fourth power play goal of the game for Breezy Point, cutting the lead to 5-4 at 18:27 of the third. The Grizzlies played solid defensively for the last minute and a half to prevent the North Stars from tying the game.
Breezy Point would finish 4/6 on the power play, despite coming into the game with the second worst power play in the league at 10.5%. Rochester finished 1/8 on the power play, with Olson’s tally being the lone one. Liam Kelly picked up the win in net as Rochester out-shot Breezy Point 48-25.
The Grizzlies are halfway through a four-game home stand and are back at it Wednesday night against the Willmar War Hawks. Puck drop is 7:05 from the Rochester Rec Center.