By Andrew Simonson | Shelby County Reporter
While the Birmingham Bulls’ win streak came to an end on Wednesday, Nov. 22, they flipped a 4-0 road loss to the Pensacola Ice Flyers into an 8-1 offensive showcase on Friday, Nov. 24 at the Pelham Civic Complex and Ice Arena.
Eight different goal-scorers found the back of the net in the win, and the Bulls netted three power play goals to take command of the game and get back to winning ways.
Brendan Soucie opened up the scoring just 3:45 into the first period after taking advantage of passes from Jonathan Pace and Mac Lewis for the first goal of the night. From there, the Bulls kickstarted their dominant night on the power play midway through the period. After killing off an interference penalty four minutes prior, Troy MacTavish scored a power play goal 34 seconds into the man advantage to double the Bulls’ lead.
Now up 2-0 coming out of the second intermission, the Bulls kept their strong power play going as Brian Bowen notched his first goal of the season at the 8:57 mark of the period shortly into Birmingham’s fourth power play of the night.
A five-minute stretch doubled Birmingham’s lead again, this time to 6-0, thanks to goals from Nikita Kozyrev at the 10:31 mark, Carson Rose on the power play two and a half minutes later and Matt Wiesner with five minutes remaining in the period. After making a goaltender change, Pensacola nearly got to the locker room without suffering any more damage, but Chase Carter scored his first goal of the season with just 33 seconds left in the second period thanks to assists by Taylor Brierley and Wiesner.
Most of the third period went by without much commotion apart from a cross-checking penalty on Pensacola’s Jordan Henderson that led to a game misconduct for inciting an opponent on his teammate Sean Gulka.
However, the Ice Flyers took advantage of a pair of Bulls penalties to score their lone goal of the night late in the third period. Garrett Milan scored a power play goal on the five-on-three advantage with just under four minutes remaining in the game to cut the lead to 7-1.
Birmingham reestablished its seven-goal gap with less than a minute left thanks to an unassisted goal from Scott Donahue to put the finishing touches on the 8-1 win at home. Hayden Stewart ended the game with 24 saves and just one goal allowed to earn the first star of the night, while Chase Carter earned the second star for his goal and an assist and Brian Bowen took the third star for scoring a goal and recording two assists.
After a two-game road trip to Macon to face the Mayhem, the Bulls will return home on Friday, Dec. 8 to take on the Huntsville Havoc before making a return trip to Huntsville the next night on Saturday, Dec. 9.
Read more at: https://www.shelbycountyreporter.com/2023/11/28/bulls-put-eight-past-pensacola-in-dominant-win/
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