After splitting the first two games of the Clark Cup Final in Iowa, the Waterloo Black Hawks and Muskegon Lumberjacks shifted the best-of-five series to Trinity Health Arena in Muskegon Friday night.
The fans got more than their money’s worth. The game went into double overtime before Ivan Ryabkin finally ended the defensive struggle and gave the Jacks a 2-1 victory. Muskegon now has a 2-1 lead in the best-of-five series and could clinch their first Clark Cup in franchise history as early as Saturday.
"Our group's been resilient all year long from top to bottom," Lumberjacks head coach Parker Burgess said in his post-game presser. "We're proud of them tonight. Waterloo's a resilient group so they're going to come again tomorrow and push back. I think for our guys, we're in a great position but the job's not finished."
It was the longest game thus far in the 2025 Clark Cup Playoffs. Friday’s contest represented just the second overtime across the league during the current post-season. The Hawks had also been involved in the other OT, topping the Sioux Falls Stampede 6-5 on Apr. 22.
As opposed to the first two games in Waterloo on a wider rink, Game 3 took place on an NHL-size sheet, and the contest was tight and physical.
The first period saw plenty of end-to-end action. Each team got a couple of power-play opportunities, but neither could take advantage.
The team who scored first in games 1 and 2 ended up on the losing end. Friday night, it was the Jacks’ turn to try and buck the trend.
At 14:28, Vaclav Nestrasil notched the game’s first goal at the top of the crease off a Jack Galanek feed. Nestrasil fired a shot past Waterloo goaltender Carter Casey for a 1-0 Muskegon lead. Jack Galanek and Bauer Berry picked up the assists. Nestrasil now has a goal in each of the first three games of the series.
That lead held up as the teams headed to their dressing rooms after 20 minutes. Waterloo outshot Muskegon 14-8 in the period.
The middle frame began much like the first, with numerous penalties on both teams. Muskegon started off the middle frame with 31 seconds left on a power play that came on a tripping call on Hunter Ramos late in the first. However, the Hawks were able to kill it off.
Later in the period, the Jacks were called for too many men on the ice while attempting a shift change, but survived the penalty kill.
The Hawks finally broke through the Muskegon defense and netminder Shikhabutdin Gadzhiev in the third period. Reid Daavettila scored his first goal of the series and second of the post-season six minutes into the frame after Gadzhiev stopped Teddy Mallgrave’s initial shot. Daavettila was there to put in the rebound and tie the score 1-1.
With just over two minutes left in the frame, the Jacks thought they had taken the lead after Nestrasil hit the crossbar. The goal light came on, but the net didn't appear to move. The goal was disallowed after a video review.
Daavettila’s tally would end up being the only one of the period, and the Trinity Health Arena crowd would be treated to some bonus hockey.
Carter Casey made two big saves for the Hawks eight minutes into the first overtime, thwarting a Muskegon attempt to end the game.
Gadzhiev slammed the door on Hunter Ramos at the other end a short time later, denying a shot on a give-and-go with Brendan McMorrow.
The Hawks had another chance to put the game away when Ryan Whiterabbit’s shot went wide of an empty net after Gadzhiev was sprawled on the ice.
One overtime wouldn’t be enough to decide a winner, so the teams headed to a second sudden-death extra frame.
Finally, Ryabkin put in the game-winner off a turnover 8:22 into the second OT, nailing down the 2-1 win for the Lumberjacks and putting Waterloo on the brink of elimination for the first time this post-season. Ryabkin's goal was unassisted.
A bad bounce here, a mistake there, and the game could have turned out differently. After the game, Jacks center Drew Stewart pointed to the closeness of his teammates as the catalyst to overcoming adversity.
"When you face some adversity, a lot of people would get separated from their group, but I think we get tighter and we get more positive," Stewart said. "That helps us a lot because you can't do it if you don't have your brothers with you. It makes it fun to play."
Gadzhiev made 40 saves in the victory, while Casey stopped 38 shots to suffer the hard-luck loss.
"The boys played well," Black Hawks head coach Matt Smaby said after the game. "That was a good hockey game, a really good hockey game. It was compete on both sides, there was physicality, speed. The thing that really sticks out is our sacrifice, laying down and blocking shots... We were laying down, eating pucks and doing whatever it is that we can."
Game 4 takes place Saturday in Muskegon, with puck drop set for 6:10 ET.