After starting off these playoffs poorly, the Komets have fought their way to victories in six of the last seven games.

Propelled by two goals apiece from Alex Belzile and Brett Perlini, the Komets defeated the Utah Grizzlies 5-3 tonight at Memorial Coliseum.

Fort Wayne now has a 2-0 lead in the best-of-seven Western Conference semifinals, which continue Wednesday night in West Valley City, Utah.

The Komets, who lost the first two games of the postseason at the Coliseum to the Cincinnati Cyclones, ensured there will be at least one more game in Fort Wayne because of the 2-3-2 format to this series.

In the Komets’ 6-4 series-opening victory at the Coliseum on Friday, the Komets squandered the 3-0 lead they built in the first 3:23. After it was tied at 4, they needed goals from Kyle Thomas (power play) and Trevor Cheek (short-handed) to secure the victory.

Fort Wayne got another fast start tonight with Perlini scoring off a rebound 22 seconds into the game. When scoring first, the Komets are 32-11-2, including 5-2 in these playoffs.

Utah goalie Mark Owuya recovered, though, stopping Perlini from point-blank range at 11:20 and foiling Mike Embach at 16:00 after he intercepted the puck and fired a 25-foot shot. With less than 1 seconds left in the period, Barry Almeida tied it by tucking the puck inside the right post from the side of the net.

Almeida netted a power-play goal 4:10 into the second period with a shot from the right side that caromed off defenseman Justin Hamonic and into the net, after Fort Wayne was penalized for having too many men on the ice.

After killing off 34 of 35 power plays in the first-round, seven-game series with Cincinnati, the Komets have stopped Utah on 9 of 12 power plays.

Just 1:21 after Almeida’s go-ahead goal, Fort Wayne’s Belzile answered with a one-timer from the left circle to tie it at 2.





Fort Wayne’s Will Weber slid to break up a T.J. Syner shot during a 2-on-1 rush and keep it tied at 2 at 10:20. After Nagle stopped Almeida on a shot from 8 feet at 13:21, a Weber check of Syner incited a 10-player melee but Weber got the only penalty.

Another melee broke out at 17:45 and Fort Wayne’s Jordon Southorn was shoving Marc Cantin before Almeida came in and tackled Southorn from behind. The sequence put Fort Wayne short-handed because Cantin didn’t get a penalty.

Before the game, Utah goalie Ryan Faragher was called up to San Diego of the American Hockey League. Faragher, the Game 1 starter, stopped only 3 of 6 shots and was pulled after 3:23. His replacement, Owuya, got the start Saturday and was backed up by Alex Zion, a native of Fort Wayne who had backed up the Komets before. Zion will not go back to Utah with the Grizzlies, who have a few emergency backups they rely on there.

Owuya preserved the 2-all score with a couple of sprawling saves on Troy Bourke early in the third period, after which Belzile hit the right post.

They atoned at 5:57, when Bourke’s pass from behind the net gave Belzile a shot into an open net for a 3-2 lead, shortly after Utah’s Alex Krushelnynski ripped the stick out of Weber’s hands and tossed it down the ice without a call by the referees.

Owuya stopped Bourke from point-blank range at 9:50, during a power play, to keep the Komets’ lead at a manageable 3-2. But Perlini scored at 13:50 to give Fort Wayne some breathing room; he redirected a Shawn Szydlowski shot from the right boards.

The Grizzlies’ Charles Sarault netted a short-handed goal at the end of a 2-on-1 rush at 15:10, but Fort Wayne cemented the victory with an empty-net goal from Szydlowski.

Notes: The referees were Chris Pontes and Peter Tarnaris. Tarnaris was part of the officiating crew that called 18 penalties in a Komets game in the first round. … The Komets’ lineup was unchanged from Game 1 with the scratches: Garrett Meurs, Taylor Crunk, David Friedmann, Cody Corbett and Randy Cure. … Utah played without Tim Daly, Cody Ferriero, Jason Binkley, Brent Gwidt, Alex Gallant and Kenton Helgesen.

jcohn@jg.net