Falcons Flying High In Opener

The Springfield Falcons are perfect. Now I bet you didn't expect to read that sentence after last year. But Rob Daum's club opened the season with what sounds like a convincing 5-2 victory over the Portland Pirates Saturday night. Chris Minard, Charles Linglet, Liam Reddox, Taylor Chorney and Adam Henrich scored for Springfield, which went 3-5 on the power play.

Minard opened the scoring on the power play taking a quick centering pass from Ryan Potulny and wiring it past Jhonas Enroth from the slot. After Portland tied it up, Liam Reddox flashed some skill, spinning away from a check, coming out from behind the net and roofing it short side.

The trio of Chris Minard, Charles Linglet and Adam Henrich combined for 5 points and all factored in on the 3rd Falcons goal. After a nice cycle in the left corner, Minard made a sweet back pass to Linglet in front who snapped it past Enroth.

The Pirates Marc-Andre Gragnani notched his second of the game to cut Springfield's lead to one, but the Falcons answered on the power play again. Ryan Potulny won a clean faceoff to Chris Armstrong who fed a pass across the blueline to a waiting Taylor Chorney. The former Fighting Sioux one timed the pass in for his first of the season to make it 4-2.

Adam Henrich rounded out the scoring, trailing a 2 on 1 with Reddox and Slava Trukhno, Henrich put away a Reddox pass to put Springfield up by 3. Things got a little rough after that when Kip Brennan steam rolled Joe DiPenta. It might have been a charge and DiPenta went kind of nuts. While Brennan was dealing with Jeff Cowan in a scrap DiPenta 2 hand slashed Brennan, and a mini line brawl broke out.

All in all it seemed like a great effort from Springfield. Some nice offence, a productive power play, team toughness and Devan Dubnyk stopped 31 of the 33 shots he faced, including 13 in each of the final 2 periods. Overall Springfield was outshot 33-24.