Post by QC Mike on Jun 20, 2022 20:22:53 GMT -7
Cremona went into the home and home against Quad Cities needing just to deny the Quarrymen a single point to book their place int the playoffs. The series opened at the Qualcomm Quad Cities Quonset Hut where the home side got off to a dream start when Cale Makar took a dump in coast to coast and beat Ilya Samsonov with a wrister to the blocker side in the opening minute. Quad Cities 1, Cremona 0. A few minutes later with Damon Severson off for interference, Ivan Provorov's howitzer from the point beat Samsonov to double the Q-Men's lead. Mikko Rantanen pulled one back for the Titans half way through the frame. Miles Wood restored the two goal lead for the Quarrymen at 14:48 on the power play before Auston Matthews pulled the Titans back withing one two minutes later. Quad Cities going into the intermission up 3-2. The second frame saw Joel Farabee and Kevin Fials score power play markers less than a minute apart with Jacob Silfverburg scorring off the faceoff for the second power play marker to give the home side three goals in under two minutes. Rantanen scored his second for Cremona but Fiala's second power play marker late in the period sent the home side into the break up 7-3. Brady Tkachuk's hard wrister caught Philip Grubauer up high and knocked him out of the game to be replaced by Alexander Georgiev. James van Riemsdyk's power play marker further stretched the home side's lead.Brafy Tkachuk pegged one back before Kevin Fiala completed his hat trick at 13:36 of the third. Andrei Svechnikov scored the Titan's fifth before Fiala got this fourth and the team's 10th with two minutes remaining. Quad Cities taking the opener 10-5 while going 7 for 11 on the power play.
Cremona 5 (9 on 35) vs Quad Cities 10 (14 on 41)
1. Fiala (QCQ) - 4G
2. Makar (QCQ) - 1G, 4A
3. McAvoy (QCQ) - 4A
The rematch back in Cremona got off to a bad start for the Titans as Ryan Strome took Ivan Provorov's feed off the opening face off to put the visitors up after thirteen seconds. Oliver Wahlstrom evened the game at ones with Philip Grubauer off for slashing just over two minutes later to get the crowd back into it and Troy Terry's goal just after the four minute mark gave the Titans their first lead of the series. It was relatively short lived as Strome evened the score back up two minutes later. Goodrow then caught Matthews with a heavy hit on the forecheck. Matthews was obviously labouring but stayed in the game. Then with Rantanen off for hooking, Nick Schmaltz scored at the sixteen minute mark to give the Q-Men the lead 3-2. Taylor Hall capitalized on a Quad Cities breakdown and went in on the breakaway but Grubauer was up to the challenge and held the lead for the visitors into the intermission. In the second, with Tkachuk off for slashing, Charlie McAvoy doubled the Quad Cities lead just before the half way point of the game and then Schmaltz further stretched the lead at 12:48. Rantanen got his third of the series with just over five minutes remaining to draw closer with the visitors holding the 5-3 lead after two. The third saw Joel Farabee stretch the visitors lead before four minutes had passed but Kappo Kakko pulled that one back just over five minutes in. Fiala got his fifth of the series before Elias Lindholm stretched the lead 8-4 with just over eleven minutes left in the game. Auston Matthews, bravely soldiering on, scored a power play marker with just over six minutes left. The Titans pushed but weren't able to generate anything and with just over two minutes remaining in the game Brady Tkachuk went looking for a dance partner but couldn't find a willing combatant and ended up with a double minor for roughing. Late power play markers from Makar and Farabee resulted in Quad Cities winning the second game by an identical 10-5 scoreline and storming into the last playoff spot.
Quad Cities 10 (10 on 40) vs Cremona 5 (10 on 37)
1. Leddy (QCQ) - 4A
2. Makar (QCQ) - 1G, 2A
3. Farabee (QCQ) - 2G, 5 shots, 2PM
Quad Cities finishes the season 9-8-0-1 for 19 points. the difference in this series was goaltending and the power play. While Quad Cities keeper was below expectation, Cremona would have been better off with a zamboni driver between the pipes. This contributed to the Q-Men going 12 for 17 on the power play over the series.