TOLEDO, OH – The Tulsa Oilers (13-5-4) saw a 3-1 lead disappear Friday, as they fell 6-4 to the Toledo Walleye (15-3-2) at the Huntington Center in the Oilers opener to a six-game road trip.
The Walleye broke a scoreless deadlock at 11:33 of the first period when Greg Wolfe collected a carom off of the end boards and stuffed it past Evan Fitzpatrick. Tulsa answered when Steven Kaunisto sailed a shot over the glove of Kaden Fulcher and into the top corner of the net nearly three minutes later. Anthony McVeigh fired home his first ECHL goal with 3:34 left in the frame and Tyler Soy made a spectacular move on a breakaway in the final minute to make it 3-1 by the end of the opening frame.
Toledo cut its deficit to one when Jordan Topping threw a shot off of a skate that trickled into the net. But Soy answered with his second goal of the game, a wrist shot from the right circle over Fulcher’s blocker to make it 4-2. The Walleye kept it close when Matt Register sent a wrist shot from the point under Fitzpatrick’s glove. Toledo had four second period power plays, and Register tied the score at 4-4 on the last of those power plays with a shot from the point late in the middle stanza.
A fluky bounce off of traffic in front of Fitzpatrick’s net led to Toledo’s game-winning goal, as the puck ricocheted off the body of Daniel Leavens and bounced up in the air, before falling in behind the Oilers’ goaltender. Brian Moore added an empty-net goal in the final minute to seal the Walleye win.
The Oilers face the Kalamazoo Wings Saturday night at the Wings Event Center at 6:35pm CT, before closing the weekend in Fort Wayne with a matchup against the Komets at 4:00pm CT at Memorial Coliseum.
