The Rochester Knighthawks closed out a two-game weekend with a historic defensive effort Saturday night, holding the Minnesota Swarm to a league-low two goals. The Knighthawks (9-4) moved within one game of first place in the East Division after earning a 10-2 win over the Swarm at Connors & Ferris Field at The Blue Cross Arena.
Matt Vinc, who made 39 saves, held Minnesota scoreless for nearly 26 minutes and yielded just single goals in the second and fourth quarters. The win was his second in two nights, following a 49-save effort in a win over Toronto last night.
“It feels great, especially coming off of a big win yesterday against Toronto,” said Vinc. “To beat another East team and only let in two goals, it’s a huge accomplishment not only for myself but for the defense in front of me. It’s symbolic of how we’ve played all weekend as a defensive unit. They soaked up a lot of shots and got a lot of key ground balls. It’s great that we are playing well.”
It was a total team effort as the Knighthawks got scoring from an array of players. The Knighthawks was led by a five-point night (2+3) from Jordan Hall and four points from Dan Dawson (1+3) and Cody Jamieson (1+3). Jamieson is now one point shy of 400 in his career. Newly acquired Joe Resetarits scored a first half hat trick to tie his single-game career high.
Dan Dawson also put in a goal and added three assists, while Stephen Keogh (1+1), Scott Self (1+0) and Brad Self (1+0) each scored a goal.
“It was two good efforts,” said Knighthawks head coach Mike Hasen. “It was very rewarding for those guys out there. They played a great game. The ‘D’ guys did a dynamic job and the ‘O’ guys did a good job getting on the floor and in transition.”
Jamieson opened the scoring with a power-play goal at 3:35 of the first quarter. Hall followed suit with a bullet from the outside to make it 2-0. Keogh then made it 3-0 on a beautiful bounce-shot past Swarm goaltender Zach Higgins before Resetarits went on a scoring run of his own. His three-goal first-half performance staked Rochester to a 6-1 halftime lead.
After being acquired at the trade deadline on Tuesday, Resetarits made his Knighthawks debut against the Toronto Rock where he tallied two goals. In two games with Rochester, the third-year pro has five goals.
“It’s amazing being traded to the three-time defending champs,” said Resetarits. “Coming in right away and playing, that’s amazing. Coming in and being able to play with Dan (Dawson) again, Jordan (Hall) and Keogh is crazy. With ‘Vno’ playing as well as he was, nothing was going to stop us.”
“It starts with Matt (Vinc). He was unbelievable,” Brad Self said. “We had a strong game last night and we owed it to our team and we owed it to our fans to come out strong and stay nice and tight. Our success starts with Matt and staying tight as a group.”
Self scored on the breakaway after intercepting a pass to make it 8-1 in the fourth quarter. The marker was part of a four-goal fourth, which began with a Dawson power-play tally at 6:43. Scott Self followed his brother, Brad, with a transition goal less than two minutes later to make it 9-1. Hall sealed the deal with the Knighthawks’ 10th goal of the night to close out the weekend with another win.
“To go to Toronto and beat them in their building was big. Obviously, we couldn’t take (the Swarm) for granted coming into this building,” said Self. “It was nice to get two big wins against East opponents and we need to continue to do that.”
