Wings defeat Knighthawks in Overtime Thriller

Joe Resetarits scored 3:45 into overtime to give the Philadelphia Wings a 14-13 victory over the Rochester Knighthawks in the Wings’ final home game of the 2023 season. The win pulled the Wings into a tie with Halifax for fourth place in the East Division and bolstered their effort to grab one of the final playoff spots over the last three weeks of the season.

The Wings finished off a back-and-forth first quarter with a 4-3 advantage and maintained that one-goal lead at halftime, sitting up 8-7 at the break. They were able to pull away in the third quarter, opening up a four-goal lead when Blaze Riorden made it 12-8 with a goal 22 seconds into the final period.

But the Wings needed every bit of that cushion, as Rochester scored the next five in a row to take a 13-12 lead with 2:25 to play. Philadelphia was able to match the last goal of that run 16 seconds after the fact when Taite Cattoni completed a hat trick, knotting the proceedings at 13-13, and neither team found the back of the net over the final two minutes.

Both teams had chances early in the overtime period, but it was Resetarits who finally broke through when he ran off a screen set by Kiel Matisz and beat Rochester goaltender Rylan Hartley just inside the left post. It was the Wings’ second overtime victory over the Knighthawks this season, joining a 9-8 win where Blaze Riorden picked up his fourth career overtime winner.

Resetarits’s game-winner was his fourth tally of the contest and finished off a seven-point game. It was his 36^th goal of the campaign, breaking the single-season franchise record of 35 set by Kevin Crowley in 2019. Along the way, he also broke Crowley’s single-season points record of 89 set last season; Resetarits has 93 points on the year after the contest.

Mitch Jones also had a seven-point game (2G, 5A) with six of those – two goals and four assists – coming in the second half; the first goal was the 200^th of his career. Jones now has 105 points total on the season including his time in Vancouver, and has reached an astonishing 70 points in just nine games with Philadelphia. Cattoni had a career game with three goals and two assists, while Ben McIntosh also potted a pair and picked up his 500^th career point.  Chad Tutton and Isaiah Davis-Allen each chipped in crucial transition goals.

Both goaltenders were impressive, with Hartley making 38 saves on 52 shots but ending up outdueled by Zach Higgins, who stopped 43 of 56 bids.

The Wings are off this week before finishing off the season with three consecutive road games, starting in Toronto on April 15.