GREENVILLE, S.C. – A late third-period surge for the Toledo Walleye spearheaded the team’s victory over the Greenville Swamp Rabbits, who found themselves unable to push any of their 25 shots past netminder Jan Bednar in Saturday night’s shutout loss. With the loss, the Walleye will return home with a sweep over the Rabbits in the two teams' first series in Greenville since December 18 and 19 of 2021, where the Walleye posted two overtime victories.
Toledo broke the scoreless deadlock at 9:33 of the opening period, scoring the first goal of the contest for the second time this weekend. Just moments after an offensive-zone face-off, Michael Prapavessis carried the puck from the blue line to the high slot and rifled a shot past Swamp Rabbits net-minder Ryan Bedanrd, with help from Riley Sawchuk and Brendon Michaelian. Jan Bednar, manning the net for Toledo, stopped all 10 shots he faced in the first frame.
Both teams skated to a scoreless middle frame despite one power play awarded on either side. Bednar continued to seal his net shut, turning aside another eight shots from Greenville.
Heading into the third period down by one, the Swamp Rabbits looked to bring themselves back into the game with the tying goal. However, Orrin Centazzo extended Toledo’s lead at 12:54, pushing the Rabbits farther out of reach. Centazzo wristed a shot from the top of the circle directly off an offensive-zone face-off for the 2-0 lead (Keenan recorded the lone assist). Exactly 55 seconds later at 13:49, Sawchuk found the back of the net to cushion Toledo’s lead. Jacob Graves recovered a turnover in the neutral zone and dished a cross-ice pass to Sawchuk, who sniped the puck past Bednard, etching his fourth point of the weekend.
Ryan Bednard stopped 31 of 34 shots from the Walleye in the defeat (18-10-0-0).
The Swamp Rabbits travel to take on the Jacksonville Icemen for a Sunday matinee tomorrow, March 17th. Puck drop for the first of three on the road against the Icemen over the next week is slated for 3:00 p.m. EST at VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena.
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