Original photography by Tracey Happold-Brown
Goaltender Deacan Knott was like a beacon in the night as he guided the Philadelphia Wings to a 16-13 win over the Georgia Swarm on Saturday evening at Wells Fargo Center in the Wings final home game of the season. He “knotted” down the net to secure the win in front of the 8,520 attendees during fan appreciation night.
Georgia wanted to wrap up a playoff spot but over two weeks have seen their chances evaporate with two consecutive losses to the Wings, who are still a very long shot away from the playoffs, but not mathematically eliminated yet.
Perhaps the game should have been called Resetarits Appreciation Night with his 10 points with his 3 goals and 7 assists performance. Resetarits, who keeps breaking records, became the player to score the most amount of points for the Wings in one season. He also continued his quest to add to his scoring dominance as the most decorated player born in the United States, netting his 350th career goal. He dodged, he jabbed, he flew: the man keeps improving his game year after year. Put a bunch of defenders on him? No big deal. He will find a way to find the back of the net.
Also finding the back of the net were several of his teammates. For the first time in a long time, the Wings had three straight solid quarters of play. Goals by Mike McCannell, Sam LeClair, Brennan O’Neill, Dalton Young, Phil Caputo, Blaze Riorden and Mitch Jones (with a sick BTB) contributed to the dominating play of Philadelphia through quarter 3. Caputo contributed four goals overall in addition to the hat trick he posted in Philly’s win over Georgia last weekend, too.
But then came the fourth quarter, and with it, some nerve-racking moments for the home fans. Georgia went on a scoring run that clipped the Wings. They swarmed the net and buried a bunch of shots, with a dominating 9-3 goal ouburst. Philadelphia had the win “knotted” up in the end—and Knott strutted off the field mobbed by his teammates.
“I got the call last night that said I was going,” Knott said in a post-game interview. “All excitement for sure. I got the W and it’s a great feeling. The guys came out hot and played an amazing game.”
Head coach Ian Rubel appeared quite pleased with the Wings win. He reiterated that “the message this week was about our starts. We haven’t had great starts this year, and we needed to change something, and Deacs was it. He came in there and played composed for his first [home] game and he saw a lot of shots. He made a lot of big stops for us early in the game.”
Jordan MacIntosh had a five-goal night for Georgia, the biggest output for the defensive captain since 2014. Brett Dobson contributed three assists from his crease. Georgia, who struggled at the end of last week’s game, tried to pull off the win late in quarter four, but it was too late to stop the Wings and the fans from soaring.
With one week of play left, the Wings will travel to Vancouver to take on the Warriors in a homecoming for Mitch Jones. Georgia will host Buffalo, who has clinched the first overall seed.
