The Oklahoma City Blazers and Atlanta Capitals met for the second of their three-game weekend set on Saturday night, after the Blazers took game one of the series. Both teams returned to their starting goaltenders with Jacob Ahl in net for OKC, and Greg Smith in for Atlanta.
Oklahoma City got off to a hot start, scoring twice in the first 1:04 of the contest. Artem Korolev kicked things off for OKC at the 0:24 mark of the game, followed up by Noah Roitman to put OKC up by the 2-0 score. No goals would follow for the remainder of the period, with the score holding into the 1st intermission.
Following the script of the night before, the 2-0 score was met by multiple goals by the opposing team, with this time, the Capitals scoring four-straight goals. Kirill Nikulichev, Chris McClorey, and Andrew Raburn all combined in the 2nd period to put Atlanta up 3-2 at the break. Gunnar Moore then kicked off period number three at the 0:55 mark to put Atlanta up by the 4-2 score.
A penalty-filled 3rd provided the Blazers with three opportunities on the power play, but were unable to break through with the man-advantage. With time beginning to wind down, the Blazers finally got back on the board as Artem Shura received a faceoff win from Michael Onda, scoring from the point to make it a 4-3 game. With 1:14 remaining in regulation time, Tristan Warr tied things up for OKC, picking up a pass from Roitman, and sending the game into overtime.
A scoreless extra period led to the first shootout of the season for the Blazers. Korolev and Warr both picked up goals in the shootout, but as the shootout entered the fifth round, Gunnar Moore provided the needed goal for Atlanta, and handed OKC their first shootout loss of the season.
Greg Smith improved to 9-1-0 on the season for the Capitals as he picked up the win in net, while Jacob Ahl took his first loss of the season, falling to 5-0-1.
The weekend series closed out on Sunday, as the teams return to Blazers Ice Centre at 12:00p Central Time.
