With his team’s season on the line, Glenn Gawdin scored with 48.2 seconds left in regulation and again 6:43 into overtime to give the Stockton Heat a 4-3 win over Chicago in Game 4 of the Western Conference Finals on Friday night.
The Wolves are still up three games to one as the teams prepare for Game 5 on Saturday evening in Stockton (9 ET, AHLTV).
With the Heat on a power play after Walker Duehr was held up by Jalen Chatfield on a breakaway, Justin Kirkland made a terrific play at the blue line to knock down a Wolves clearing attempt, then Juuso Valimaki found Gawdin who beat Pyotr Kochetkov for the winning goal.
Stockton had been 0-for-16 on the power play in the series before Gawdin’s game-winner.
Jack Drury scored a power-play goal to put Chicago on the board first 4:40 into the game. The Heat responded when captain Byron Froese forced a turnover behind the Wolves net and found Martin Pospisil, who made it 1-1 at 16:08 of the first period.
Andrew Poturalski scored early in the second and Josh Leivo netted his league-leading 10th goal of the postseason at 4:56 of the third to put Chicago ahead 3-1, but Kirkland answered just eight seconds later to cut the deficit back to one.
Stockton pulled Dustin Wolf for an extra attacker and Gawdin got his first goal of the series at 19:11 to force overtime.
Wolf (7-4) made 31 saves to snap a three-game losing streak, the Heat’s first such streak of the season.
Kochetkov (1-1) stopped 34 shots for Chicago.
C1-Chicago Wolves vs. P1-Stockton Heat
Game 1 – Fri., June 3 – CHICAGO 5, Stockton 4 (OT)
Game 2 – Mon., June 6 – CHICAGO 3, Stockton 2
Game 3 – Wed., June 8 – Chicago 3, STOCKTON 0
Game 4 – Fri., June 10 – STOCKTON 4, Chicago 3 (OT)
Game 5 – Sat., June 11 – Chicago at Stockton, 9:00
*Game 6 – Tue., June 14 – Stockton at Chicago, 8:00
*Game 7 – Wed., June 15 – Stockton at Chicago, 8:00
*if necessary… All times Eastern
