“I have never had a team that has shot themselves in the foot this much,” head coach John Marks said of his players’ penchant for critical mistakes.
Dayton (25-45-3-1) keeps conceding goals in bunches. Fort Wayne torched the Gems with three tallies in 39 seconds Friday at Indiana and the script looked familiar at Hara.
But down 3-0 after 18 minutes, Dayton rallied late in the second period on goals from Matt Szypura and Corey Couturier. Couturier continued his productive rookie season (12 goals and 30 assists in 54 games) when he buried a Tim Hartung feed at 15:57. Szypura went hard to the net and deposited a Nathan Oke pass to cut the lead to 3-2 with nine seconds before intermission.
Dayton hoped for a Lazarus-like result after coming back from the dead. But Sean O’Connor’s power-play effort 5:48 into the third and Leo Thomas’ hat-trick goal 36 seconds later ended that.
O’Connor opened the scoring 8:14 into the game when he picked the top corner on Derek MacIntyre’s stick side. Thomas added two goals in less than three minutes to make it 3-0, the second coming on a tip-in after a Gems turnover deep in their own zone.
“Turnovers kill you,” Marks said. “My granddaughter calls me Papa John and my delivery boys served them up a couple extra large with everything on it.”
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