Liukkonen Nets Four, Warriors Take First Place with 9-1 Win

January 28, 2023 – North American Hockey League (NAHL) – Oklahoma Warriors News Release

OKLAHOMA CITY – Mikko Liukkonen’s four-goal night time helped the Oklahoma Warriors soar into first place within the South Division with their 9-1 win over the Corpus Christi IceRays Friday at Blazers Ice Centre.

The first 20 minutes of play confirmed no trace of a blowout recreation after the Warriors and IceRays headed to intermission tied on the scoreboard. Liukkonen opened the sport’s scoring with his first North American Hockey League objective 6:37 into the sport. Brendan Williams despatched a no-look move from beneath the objective line to Owen Carlile within the left circle and Carlile fired on web for a rebound that proved to be the 1-0 objective. Corpus Christi answered again with a powerplay objective underneath two minutes later for what turned out to be its solely objective of the sport.

Oklahoma’s offense exploded for six targets within the second interval and Liukkonen wasted little time finishing his hat trick. Owen Baumgartner settled an IceRays dump in and gave the puck to William Lawson-Body to start the sequence within the Warriors zone. Lawson-Body handed as much as Liukkonen, who negated a stick test to maintain the puck earlier than skating in and scoring five-hole on a breakaway underneath two minutes into the interval. Liukkonen made it a 3-1 recreation about 4 minutes later when he intercepted an errant move close to the highest of the crease and roofed the puck from in tight. Liukkonen required simply 20 minutes and 7 seconds between his first and third targets of the night time. Rylan Brady scored his team-leading sixteenth objective, from Lawson-Body and Williams, at 9:01 of the interval to make it a 4-1 recreation. Past the midway level within the interval, Oklahoma’s powerplay related to present the house squad a 4 objective lead. Drew Sutton and William Ahlrik discovered Joey Delgreco within the slot for the 5-1 objective. The Warriors added targets from Hunter Jones and Ahlrik, each assisted by Malte Hasselgren, earlier than the interval ended to take a 7-1 lead into the third interval.

Ahlrik tipped in a Therien Thiesing shot that was arrange by Jones to extend Oklahoma’s complete to eight targets 1:52 into the third interval. Less than a minute later, the Warriors added one more- Liukkonen’s fourth- to set a franchise file with 9 targets scored in a recreation. Hasselgren chipped the puck up the far-side wall from his personal zone to Liukkonen, and the Finnish winger skated into the zone and sailed in his fourth of the sport from the excessive slot.

With the Warriors win and a Lone Star Brahmas defeat on the claws of the Shreveport Mudbugs, Oklahoma jumped into the primary place spot within the South Division with 55 factors, one forward of Lone Star.

The Warriors and IceRays will meet Saturday, January 28, for a 7:15 p.m. puck drop at Blazers Ice Centre.

• Discuss this story on the North American Hockey League message board…

The opinions expressed on this launch are these of the group issuing it, and don’t essentially mirror the ideas or opinions of OurSports Central or its employees.

report this advert