With only 5,612 fans in 20,804 seats, the atmosphere in the Palace of Auburn Hills seemed outright sleepy Thursday night for Game 3 of the International Hockey League’s Turner Cup Finals.
But a ringing effort from the line of Scott Pearson, Steve Martins and Alexander Semak gave the Wolves a second period wakeup call. As a result, they rallied to post a 4-3 victory over the Detroit Vipers and take a 2-1 lead in the IHL’s best-of-seven championship series.
Martins tied the game 2-2 at 14:55 of the second period after dancing past two Detroit defensemen. Pearson, who had been barely missing on good chances in the series, finally found the range against Vipers goaltender Jeff Reese at 5:29 of the third period.
Wolves right winger Marc Rodgers, who also had an inspired evening, scored twice as the Wolves rebounded from blowing a 4-1 lead and losing Game 2 Tuesday.
Meanwhile, as a team, the Wolves tightened up defensively, allowing Detroit just 18 shots. Still, they had to survive late power-play pressure by Detroit and overcome two soft tallies allowed by their goaltender, Stephane Beauregard.
The Wolves, who had some early jump, took a 1-0 lead at 1:02 of the first period. Rodgers fired a quick, low shot past Reese from the right circle after taking a feed from behind the net by Chris Marinucci.
However, three straight power-play chances helped put the Vipers on track offensively. They cashed in at 18:16 when Dan Kesa, standing in traffic, deflected in John Gruden’s shot from the left point to tie it at 1.
Rodgers’ second goal of the night, a power-play tally scored on a backhand tip-in of Steve Larouche’s feed from the right boards, gave the Wolves a 3-2 lead at 19:19 of the middle frame.
Set up by Semak, Pearson fired in a turnaround shot from the slot at 5:29 of the third to make it 4-2.
Detroit’s Jimmy Carson cut the Wolves lead to 4-3 with 4:49 to go when he scored from a bad angle.
