The Toledo Walleye took the high road after their record-setting 22-game winning streak was snapped on a somewhat controversial call in Game 1 of the Western Conference finals and insisted they would quickly turn the page.
The Kansas City Mavericks grabbed a 1-0 lead in the Western Conference finals on Friday night before a sellout crowd of 8,117 at the Huntington Center. Kansas City forward Jacob Hayhurst broke a third-period deadlock as the Mavericks prevailed 3-2.
Hayhurst scored with 6:32 left in regulation after Jeremy McKenna beat out an icing call and centered the puck from behind the net. On the rush toward the Toledo net, Walleye defenseman Riley McCourt fell but appeared to have won the race to the puck for what should have been an icing call on Kansas City.
Post-game, Walleye coach Pat Mikesch said he had to review the video before giving an opinion on the pivotal play.
“I haven't seen anything yet. But truthfully, whether the player falls down or not they always talk about the race to the hash mark [to call icing],” Mikesch said. “But there were a lot of things we did well. We just needed to hit the inside of the post and not the outside of the post [more often]. We generated the opportunities we wanted, but we need to focus on the opportunities we gave them.”
Kansas City coach Tad O'Had credited his players for not slowing up on the play.
“The same situation happened to us this year, and you don't give up on plays,” O'Had said. “You play to the whistle. It was a fast-paced game. Back and forth. It's going to be tight. Now we'll just reset and look at Saturday.”
Toledo trailed 2-1 near the game's midpoint when Walleye rookie Riley Sawchuk, who hit the crossbar early in the second period, scored his team-leading eighth goal of the playoffs to tie it at 2 with 8:20 left in the middle period.
Sawchuk also downplayed the non-call on the game-winning goal even though the linesmen had missed a similar icing call that Toledo had negated just moments earlier.
“It's always tough to say. In terms of icing, I didn't really get a good look at it,” he said. “But it went back and forth. And it could have gone either way. We just didn't hit the inside of the post enough tonight. That was the determining factor.”
The showdown between the regular-season champion Mavericks and red-hot Walleye played out as advertised. The fast pace was wide open as the high-scoring teams went up and down the ice. Toledo finished with a 26-22 edge in shots, but each team got plenty of quality chances.
During the regular season, Kansas City led the league in scoring with 4.24 goals per game, and Toledo led the ECHL in scoring this postseason with 4.38 goals per game.
It was the fourth one-goal game the Walleye have played in the Kelly Cup playoffs and the first they've lost in the postseason. Toledo lost for the first time since March 13.
“We never talked about the streak once,” said forward Brandon Hawkins, who gave Toledo an early 1-0 lead. “We're a group that looks at one shift at a time. There's no doubt in our locker room.”
Toledo goaltender John Lethemon made two high-quality saves in the first and finished with 19 saves. Kansas City goalie Cale Morris equaled him at the other end with 24 saves.
Toledo came out with good energy as did the standing-room-only crowd, the 32nd straight sellout at the Bank Tank.
Hawkins opened the scoring with his sixth goal of the postseason 11:08 into the game.
The Mavericks, however, answered with goals from Jake McLaughlin and then Cale Borchardt to take a 2-1 lead into the second period. Borchardt's go-ahead goal came with just 15.6 seconds left in the opening stanza.
Game 2 is set for Saturday night back at the Huntington Center.
The Walleye fell one game short of tying South Carolina for the ECHL record for the longest winning streak in league history.
First Published May 18, 2024, 1:53 a.m.
