Iowa Heartlanders get their first playoff win in their first playoff game

CEDAR RAPIDS - First playoff game in franchise history. First playoff win in franchise history.

The Iowa Heartlanders scored the first three goals of Game 1 of this ECHL first-round series Friday night and went on to beat the Fort Wayne Komets, 5-3, at Fort Wayne’s Memorial Coliseum.

Game 2 is Saturday night at 6:35.

The Heartlanders got power-play goals from Dakota Raabe and Keltie Jeri-Leon in the second period, and a short-handed goal in the third period from Adam Goodsir. Gavin Hain had a goal and two assists for Iowa.

Kyle McLellan made 24 saves for the win in net, including a handful of beauties that thwarted good Fort Wayne chances.

“I thought we played a real committed game,” said Heartlanders Coach Derek Damon. “I thought we had really good depth up front, everybody playing the right way, everybody playing hard. I thought our forecheck was really good tonight. Then I thought our back end did a really good job of absorbing their rush at times.

“And I thought Kyle was really good. He was sharp. He caught a lot of pucks, not allowing them to get in on the forecheck by just stopping a lot of pucks.”

Matthew Sop’s goal on a rebound 13:23 into the first period opened the scoring in this game. Raabe made it a 2-0 game early in the second, Jeri-Leon scored at 14:36 after a prone Hain was able to poke a loose puck to him in the slot.

Fort Wayne got right back into the game on a James Stefan 5-on-3 power-play goal in the opening minute of the third, followed by an Alex Aleardi even-strength goal off a nice individual rush at the 8:11 mark.

Damon called timeout at that point to try and stymie the Komets momentum, and it worked. Hain scored just a minute and a half later for a 4-2 lead, then Goodsir got his shorty with 6:22 to go.

That was essentially ballgame. Aleardi did get his second goal of the game on the aforementioned power play, but that was it.

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