The battle for the top of the South Division met its billing of two NA3HL powerhouses meeting between the Oklahoma City Blazers and Atlanta Capitals. With each team picking up a win in the first two matchups of the weekend, Sunday afternoon’s game would serve to decide the advantage for the winning team.
Atlanta’s Greg Smith set up in net for the third-straight game of the weekend, while Oklahoma City turned to newcomer Olivier Charbonneau.
As the first two games had gone, one team jumped out to an early 2-0 lead, this time going to the Capitals, as Ryan Burke and Nick Cyprian combined to give Atlanta the lead, which held through to the first intermission. OKC had a chance to get back on top with a major power play, but saw that negated with a too many men penalty called against them.
As the 2nd period began, OKC received another power play chance on the backend of the major, but was unable to break through. The Blazers finally hit the scoreboard on a later power play as Noah Henslee walked into the slot from the wall, and put the puck past Smith, cutting the Capitals’ lead to 2-1.
The 2-1 score would remain throughout the rest of the game, until the final minute. With Charbonneau pulled for the extra attacker, OKC had a couple of chances on net, but Atlanta picked up the empty netter with 0:26 remaining, and gave the Capitals the weekend advantage with the win.
Charbonneau made 23 saves on 25 shots faced in the contest as he fell to 0-1-0 on the season. Smith turned aside 31 OKC shots, improving to 10-1-0 this season.
OKC heads on the road next weekend for a three-game weekend set against the Texas RoadRunners in College Station, Texas. The following weekend, the Blazers return to Arctic Edge Ice Arena, as they take on the El Paso Rhinos in their re-scheduled matchup from Halloween weekend.
