Dane Johnstone scored twice as the Chatham Maroons beat the Kings 7-4 in Komoka Saturday night.
The Game 2 victory for the Maroons evens the best-of-seven Western Conference quarterfinal series at a game apiece. Johnstone said it was important to get their offence going in this one as to avoid falling into a two-game hole.
"One goal with our team is unacceptable but we bounced back today," said Johnstone. "We had guys going in, we had a couple of garbage goals and that ended up being the gist of it tonight, just getting to the net and getting those loose pucks."
Komoka appeared to pick up where they left off in Game 1 when they scored the first goal. Joe Capirchio found the net at 5:08. The Maroons responded with two goals to take a first-intermission lead. Griffin Robinson tied the game at 17:45, and Craig Spence scored the go-ahead goal less than a minute later.
The Kings began the second period by tying the game at 2-2 on a Dowson Cheng goal. Chatham broke the tie with back-to-back goals near the middle of the frame. Jake O'Donnell made the score 3-2 at 9:30, while Nolan Gardiner added an insurance goal just over a minute later.
Joel Mazzilli responded with a power-play goal at 11:07 for the Kings, cutting the Maroons' lead to 4-3. Both teams exchanged a goal each before the second interval. Johnstone scored his first goal of the evening on the power play for Chatham, then Blake McConnell-Barker put one in for Komoka to trail Chatham 5-4. The Maroons lost Dakota Bohn to the showers, though, after he earned a game misconduct for checking from behind.
The Maroons put it away with a deuce in the third period, first from Sean O'Brien then an empty-netter by Johnstone.
Tristan Lewis had 27 stops in net for the Maroons. Nathan Young had 20 saves for the Kings.
Game 3 comes up Sunday night, and Johnstone is hoping they can keep the momentum going.
"We talked about that coming in here," said Johnstone. "We said 'we ought to steal one in this barn now', so we got one and we're set. We've got some confidence under our belts and we were able to shut it down in the third, which is really good in the playoffs to do."
Puck drop at Memorial Arena is scheduled for 7 p.m. All of the action for this, and every Maroons playoff game can be heard live on-air and online on CFCO Country 92.9FM/AM 630.