Tulsa Oilers grab shootout win in Colorado.
Tulsa owns 2nd period in come from behind victory.
LOVELAND, CO.-- It’s been a long time since the Tulsa Oilers were in the win column.
Indeed, it was October 16th when last the Oilers posted two points for defeating an opponent and since then the only bright spot was a overtime loss in Bloomington. Since then it has been a big goose-egg.
That all changed on Friday evening as the Tulsa Oilers traveled to Loveland, Colorado for their third visit with the Colorado Eagles. The Eagles had beat them twice already and the Oilers have not posted a victory against them since 2008.
The first period was all Colorado on the Budweiser Events Center scoreboard. Daymen Rycroft scored a shorthanded at 2:27 with Scott May assisting. The Eagles would follow that up with an Adam Hogg power play goal at 9:41. The real story of the period came with a little over 6 minutes to play when a fight broke out between Oilers goalie Tyler Sims and Chris Hau and that propelled Eagles goalie Andrew Penner to leave his net and square off with Sims.
The summary ejection of their starting goalie proved to be a catalyst for the best scoring period the Oilers have put together since opening night. Jack Combs, Chad Costello and Mike Beausoleil all scored to give Tulsa the lead going into the 3rd period, with Costello’s goal a power play marker, a rarity so far this season for the Oilers. Combs took the puck and skated across the goal mouth and, with traffic in front of Eagles goalie Kyle Jones, he tucked the puck in on his left side.
Costello took the puck from the other side of the Oilers blue line, skated into the Eagles zone and slammed the disc past Jones. Mike Beausoleil capitalized on a rebound of a shot from Gordon Bell and hammered the puck home past Jones who was attempting to make a diving save across the crease.
Add a tying goal from the Eagles Scott May with a little more than 3 minutes remaining in the game and the stage was set for the tiebreaker. The overtime fram resulted in no score so the shootout commenced, and when it was all over, Jack Combs and Chad Costello of the Oilers would score and Kevin Ulanski would net one past Oilers relief goalie Ian Keserich and that would be enough for the Oilers to take the other point and win the game.
The Oilers will travel to Rapid City tomorrow night for their first meeting with the Rush, the defending champions from last season. That game can be heard online at tulsaoilers.com with Steve McCall providing the play-by play and it can be viewed through the special CHLTV link on that site.
The Oilers will finally return home for the first time in 18 days next week when the Allen Americans at 7:05pm in the amazing BOK Center. Tickets for that game and all Oilers home games can be purchased at the BOK box office or by calling 918-632-PUCK (7825).