Box Score
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. – Davenport's struggles continue after 7-4 loss to Liberty Saturday night. The Panthers fell behind 3-0 early but battle back to pull within one early in the third period but were never able to tie or take the lead in the game. Davenport drops to 14-12 on the season.
Davenport came out a little sluggish to start the first period. Liberty got on the board first just over a minutes into play and scored two more over the next 14 minutes to take a 3-0 lead over the Panthers. After a Davenport penalty, Norm Farr scored a much needed unassisted short-handed goal to put the Panthers on the board.
The Panthers came out firing in the second period but once again it was the Flames who scored first getting a goal 6:27 into the second period. Davenport controlled the puck for the rest of the period and after several good chances they finally got one past the Flames' goalie when Jeff Slusser knocked in a Phil Wendecker rebound to cut the lead to two through two periods.
In the third, it appeared that Davenport was ready to make a charge getting a Bo Jacobs goal less than three minutes into the period to cut the deficit to one. But Liberty responded with two goals of their own to push the lead out to three. Adam Gillikin added a goal for the Panthers but the Flames' lead was too big to overcome.
Phil Graveline came away with the loss on the night allowing seven goals on 30 Liberty shots.
Davenport will be in action again on Tuesday night when they play at No. 3 Arizona State in the first of two games against the Sun Devils before taking on No. 18 Arizona in two games later in the week.
Post-Game Quotes – Assistant Coach Joe Messina
Thoughts on game – “Once again our penalty kill cost us the game and the weekend. We played with heart and played hard but the penalty kill got in the way. We have to be stronger in front of our net, getting the puck out of the zone, and in the neutral zone. We had our chances but it just didn't go our way.”
Thoughts on quick turnaround – “I think the guys will benefit from the quick turnaround. We get right back on the ice and play another quality team. The guys don't have to go through the week thinking back about this weekend. They get to move on and put this weekend behind them.”
Post-Game Notes
Davenport is 1-3 in their four games since the Holiday break..Liberty was four of eight on the power play and all three of the Flames' third period goals were on the power play…Davenport will play four games against ranked Arizona State and Arizona next week.
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