American forward Chase Gresock scored a hat-trick of powerplay goals to help the Genting Casino Coventry Blaze to a 5-2 victory over Kyiv Capitals on Saturday at Skydome Arena.
Italian national defenceman Terrance Amorosa made his debut for the Blaze after arriving in the country earlier this week, but Brit Archie Hazeldine remained out. Cam Gray got the start in net with Will Bray backing up.
Following an end to end start to the game, Blaze had the puck in early, but it was ruled out for offside. Shortly after, Kyiv thought they had scored but the effort was wiped off due to a penalty on the play.
Penalties then became a theme of the opening twenty minutes, with Kyiv gaining a 5-on-3 advantage and making Blaze pay with the first goal of the game at 7.41.
Sevastian Karpenko was the scorer, finishing nicely over the shoulder of Blaze starter Cam Gray with assists going to Vladyslav Luhovyi and Mykyta Oliinyk.
Two further minor penalties followed for Coventry, which they were able to successfully kill but meant they were unable to gain any real offensive momentum as they went into the locker room 0-1 down after 20 minutes.
The penalties turned in Coventry’s favour during the second period and in-form Gresock used the man advantage three times to score a natural hat-trick and put the home side into a lead.
Gresock’s first came at 29.46 with the assist going to the creative Alessio Luciani. Just a few minutes later (33.15) he was able to find the back of the net again after a cross-ice feed from his powerplay quarter-back partner Jakob Stridsberg.
Luciani was again the provider for Gresock’s third and eighth in just three pre-season games at 35.08.
Coventry’s fourth came with 4.24 remaining when Brandon Alderson glided past his man and found Jackson Cressey in the slot who made no mistake to make it 4-2.
The game was over just a few seconds later when Estonian Morten Jurgens won a battle to force the puck over the line at 55.53. Luciani was awarded an assist on the Estonian’s goal, which was his third of the evening.
Kyiv ended the game on the powerplay but Gray and a determined Blaze defence were able to shut the door for a hard-fought 5-2 victory.
The two teams will meet again at Skydome Arena on Sunday with a 5.30pm face-off at Skydome Arena.
Photo credit: Scott Wiggins
