Mavericks Win Second Straight, 6-3, Over Blaze

The Missouri Mavericks scored the final four goals of the game to beat the Bloomington Blaze, 6-3, Sunday evening at US Cellular Coliseum.  Mavericks’ forward Kellan Tochkin continued his torrid pace with his second straight four-point game and two-goal game.  Forward Colt King also had a pair of goals for the Mavericks.  The win marked the second straight for the Mavericks and third out of their last four games.  Missouri finished 1-for-3 on the power play and the Blaze scored all three of their goals with the man advantage going 3-for-6.  Missouri will return home for three straight games next week and look to continue their 10-game sellout streak.
“That was a great team effort,” said Mavericks’ head coach Scott Hillman.  “Everyone in the lineup had a big game for us, and it was a good four-point weekend.
The back-and-forth battle began when Colt King scored for the Mavericks on a breakaway to give the visitors a 1-0 lead at 10:42 of the first period.  The Blaze responded with a pair of power play goals just 24 seconds apart.  First, David Gilbert beat Mavs’ goaltender Mathieu Corbeil, and then Steve Makway blasted a slapshot into the twine to give the Blaze a 2-1 lead.  Missouri scored just 23 seconds later on Kellan Tochkin’s 11th goal of the season.  He was assisted by Kenton Miller and Blake Forsyth and the teams headed to the first intermission tied, 2-2.
Goals came quickly in the second period.  Brett Lutes gave the home team a 3-2 lead on Bloomington’s third power play goal of the game just 1:54 into the period.  Missouri quickly answered and regained the lead on goals by Miller and Trevor Kell.  Miller deflected a shot by Dave Pszenyczny for a power play goal and just 34 seconds later Kell scored on assists from Sebastien Thinel and Tochkin.  The three goals were scored in the first 3:14 of the period and the Mavericks held the 4-3 lead for the final 17 minutes of the second.
Missouri opened it up in the third period and scored two more goals to finalize the scoring at 6-3.  Tochkin notched his second of the game on a nice feed from Thinel.  King also scored his second of the game on assists from Tochkin and Kell.  The Mavericks defense and goaltender Mathieu Corbeil did the rest and the Mavericks won their second straight game.
The Mavs are home for three games this week.  Missouri will host Denver on Tuesday, Feb.12, Bloomington on Friday, Feb 15 and Allen on Saturday Feb. 16.