The Greenville Swamp Rabbits kicked off the 2020-21 regular season with a thrilling, 3-2 overtime winner over the South Carolina Stingrays on Friday night at the North Charleston Coliseum. In his professional debut, Ben Finkelstein tied the score in the third period and won the game at 3:11 of sudden-death.
After a scoreless first period, the Stingrays drew first blood and opened the scoring. At 6:48, Max Novak transitioned on an offensive rush and snapped a shot past Ryan Bednard to give South Carolina a 1-0 advantage. Greenville answered at 9:07 of the frame after Bryan Moore buried a loose puck in the blue paint past Stingrays goaltender Hunter Shepard. Shots after 20 minutes were 11-8 South Carolina.
Tied 1-1 in the third period, South Carolina jumped back in front, 2-1, at the 2:51 mark. On a give-and-go transition with Max Gottlieb, Caleb Herbert threw the puck on net from the right wing and received a fortunate bounce into the Swamp Rabbits cage. Later in the third, Greenville again erased a one-goal deficit. On a 4-on-3 power play, Ben Finkelstein scored on a center point drive at 8:08 to even the count at 2-2.
Sudden-death, three-on-three overtime was required after a 60 minute deadlock, and Finkelstein struck once more to become the hero. In his professional debut, Finkelstein crashed the net and buried a rebound chance from Mike McNamee to provide Greenville a 3-2 overtime win.
The Swamp Rabbits improve to 1-0-0-0 on the season. Greenville returns to action tomorrow night to conclude their weekend against the Jacksonville Icemen. Puck drop on the road is scheduled for 7 PM. Voice of the Swamp Rabbits Matt Trust will have the live call with pregame beginning at 6:45 PM on the Swamp Rabbits Mixlr page and FloHockey, the ECHL’s new online streaming provider.
Greenville is slated to open the home portion of their regular season schedule on December 18 against the Florida Everblades. Tickets are available here.
Join us for “Heroes of the Upstate,” where we honor those who have courageously served the Upstate community during the on-going fight against COVID-19. To nominate your hero, click here.
