Improved effort leads to Wings victory

by Tom Hoffman

After a lackluster second half last week against the Toronto Rock, the Philadelphia Wings needed to give a much better performance in Sunday's meeting with the Buffalo Bandits. And for a good stretch of the game that effort was there as the Wings would pull out a 14-13 win over the reeling Bandits in front of a crowd of 8,119 at Wells Fargo Center.

"It's a better feeling this week than last week," Said Wings Coach Johnny Mouradian. "I thought our desire to win was really there, our determination, our effort was there."

The Wings, whose last goal was scored with 1:56 to play in the second quarter against Toronto, would not need to wait very long to get on the board in this game as Brendan Mundorf bounced a long distance shot that somehow fooled Bandits goalie Mike Thompson. The teams then spent the rest of the first quarter and the first half of the second stanza trading goals until Buffalo's John Tavares scored to give the Bandits their lone lead of the evening at 5-4. Kevin Crowley would tie the game at five while Brodie Merrill scored the following two goals to give the Wings a 7-5 halftime lead.

Crowley opened the second half with his third goal of the night before Chad Culp would answer for Buffalo. The Wings then scored the game's next three goals (Dan Dawson, Crowley and Drew Westervelt) to chase Thompson from the Buffalo goal in favor of Angus Goodleaf. The move appeared to stop the momentum gained by the Wings as the Bandits scored the final two goals of the third quarter and got the first score of the fourth before Merrill tallied with the Wings a man down to make the score 12-9 Wings. Buffalo would not go quietly though and would tie the game with three goals in a span of 1:27. There was still plenty of time left in regulation after Buffalo evened the score and the Wings would regroup for the next two scores from the stick of Westervelt and take a 14-12 lead. A bench minor penalty with 69 seconds to play gave the Bandits, per Rule 43.2, a penalty shot that Tavares would bury past Brandon Miller to make it a one goal game. The Wings defense would hold tight though and kept the Bandits from forcing overtime en route to handing Buffalo their fourth straight defeat.

One key for the Wings in this game was having success in the third quarter. Philly outscored the Bandits 4-3 in the third tonight after being outscored in that frame in each of the first four games of the 2012 season. Both Mouradian and Westervelt felt that was a key to the victory.

"That's a very important step for us to outscore them 4-3 when we've been outscored every third quarter this year," said Mouradian. Westervelt added, "As a team we just needed to put something together after last week. I thought we had a good third quarter."

While Westervelt scored three goals on the night, he tossed praise to several of his teammates instead.

"Three goals from Brodie is huge for us," said Westervelt. "Kevin (Crowley) continues to shoot the ball really well and Dan (Dawson)just keeps us all together. Each game it's getting more comfortable."

Dawson had a huge game with a goal and nine assists while Crowley tallied four goals. Brandon Miller made 48 saves for the Wings to bounce back from last week's Toronto debacle. Now the Wings will get a second chance against the defending champion Rock in yet another battle for first place in the East, this time in a building (Air Canada Centre) that has been quite unkind to the Wings. To Westervelt, it all means folllowing a "simple" piece of advice.

"The more simple we keep it, the more effective we are," Westervelt said.