The Kings have amassed 292 penalty minutes so far this season, a fact that proved problematic for Birmingham Unified in the first period. The Redmen saw five power play opportunities and stayed on top of the Kings 2-1 at the start of the game.
Andrew Beggs of the Kings did strike first with a short-handed goal for Birmingham Unified, their only goal of the hockey game.
Andrew Fedrizzi turned around and buried the puck with assistance from Thomas Dunleavy for a five on three goal to tie it up at 1-1. More than three minutes remained in the power play as the Kings strengthen slightly to five on four action.
Sean O’Connor again capitalized on the Kings penalty minutes and fired off a shot to the back of the net for the 2-1 lead.
The second period started off a little sloppy. The Redmen played short-handed quite a bit, gifting several power plays to the Kings in a bit of a role reversal from the first period.
The period remained scoreless until Evan Kroll, with help from Hogan Nemetz, scored a huge shorthanded goal with just one second left in the power play and less than five minutes left in the period.
Ansel Frost scored a short-handed goal of his own just two minutes later. Frost found the back of the net with help of Sean O’Connor to improve the Redmen to 4-1.
Brent Kroll fired off the Redmen’s first even-strength goal of the period. Jake Allard-Soucey and Austin Ridl assisted Kroll to spike the Redmen lead to 5-1 with the first two-thirds of the game behind them.
The third period started with a Sean O’Connor even-strength goal, Gaetanno Cammarata assisting, for a 6-1 lead over the Kings.
O’Connor followed-up with another shot and score, with help from Ansel Frost, to pick up a hat trick and widen the Redmen lead to 7-1.
Jakob Peterson peeled off a power play goal, the score 8-1 and dangerously close to a mercy end to the game for the Kings.
The Kings were able to save a few shots to stave off the mercy end, but the Redmen 8-1 victory was never really in question from late in the second period on to the final buzzer.
The Redmen will be back at home on Tuesday, February 12th against the Hancock Gremlins on 97.5 GTO. Pregame starts at 6:30 pm, the puck drops at 7:00 pm.
Listen to a recording of the live broadcast.
Photos by Amy Luke.
