It’s an overtime winning goal for Iowa Heartlanders this time

CORALVILLE - Biggest win in Iowa Heartlanders history? Without question.

The least likeliest guy to score the goal for the biggest win in Iowa Heartlanders history? Absolutely.

“I did not have Zeteny Hadobas on my bingo card, scoring the winning goal,” admitted Heartlanders Coach Derek Damon said after the defenseman’s heroics 7:07 into the second overtime Tuesday night gave Iowa a 3-2 win in Game 4 of this first-round ECHL playoff series.

The teams have won two games apiece in this best-of-7 set. Game 5 is Thursday night at Xtream Arena, with the series then shifting back to Fort Wayne over the weekend for Game 6 and an if necessary Game 7.

Hadobas scored exactly one goal in 54 regular-season games for the Heartlanders. The 22-year-old from Budapest, Hungary, is in his first season in North America and had exactly one goal last season, too, when he played professionally in Sweden, that one coming in the playoffs.

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He doesn’t score much, but when he does, apparently they’re all uber important. On the winning play, he skated with the puck through the center-ice arena and whipped a pass to teammate Jack O’Brien along the boards at the Fort Wayne blue line.

Habodas kept skating forward, O’Brien saw him and hit him with a pass. As he got to the faceoff circle and with a Fort Wayne defender in front of him but backed off enough, Hadobas let go with a hard wrist shot that went into the top right corner of the net.

Teammates mobbed him in mass celebration on the ice, and what remained of the 1,200 in attendance shrieked in shear joy.

“He gave me a really good pass,” Hadobas said of O’Brian. “I don’t know, I pushed the puck on my forehand, then just tried to get it on net. It turned out really good.

“I kind of blacked out after I saw it go in, so I don’t know what I did. I’ll have to watch it back. But it was an amazing feeling for sure.”

Hadobas’ parents watched the entire game online from their home in Budapest, even though it started at 2 a.m. their time and ended after 6 a.m. They texted their son right after the game.

What did it say?

“Nice snipe,” Hadobas said with a smile.

For the fourth time in this series, Iowa scored the first goal of the game, that coming from defenseman Mike Koster. The captain of this season’s high-powered University of Minnesota team signed with the Heartlanders after the Gophers were eliminated from the NCAA playoffs and played five regular-season games.

This was his first pro goal, as he pinched in from his position to the high slot, took a neat feed from teammate Matthew Sop and buried his shot. O’Brien’s power-play goal with just over a minute remaining in the first period gave the Heartlanders a 2-0 edge.

But Fort Wayne’s high-octane offense tied things. Alex Swetikoff had a power-play goal in the second period and former Heartlander Odeen Tufto a power-play goal in the third.

“We had to have a short memory,” Hadobas said. “We just came out hard, stayed discipline the whole game. We just trust our system, and it turned out really well.”

Iowa rebounded from Monday night’s 7-6 single-overtime loss to Fort Wayne. The Heartlanders were without forwards Gavin Hain, T.J. Walsh and Will Calverley, all out with injuries.

William Rousseau played well to get the victory in net. Nathaniel Day also played well in his first professional start.

Fort Wayne had a late power play in the final minute of regulation and first minute of overtime that Iowa killed off. The Heartlanders had three OT power plays that Fort Wayne killed off.

“This team just doesn’t give up,” Damon said. “All year we fought through adversity: injuries, call-ups, short lineups. That group in there (the locker room) is just a resilient group. I’m proud of the guys. They fought through it, and now it’s a best-of-3. We’ve got a series here.”

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