With his team trailing for most of the game, assistant coaches Cam Robichaud and Ty Simmons thought it would be a good time to use the timeout and not let it go to waste. Simmons agreed and the coaches went to draw up a play while they were on the power play.

The players responded.

Former St. Dominic Academy standout Caleb Labrie tied the game on the man advantage with 2:29 to play, and leading scorer Dylan Vrees scored the game-winning goal 52 seconds later in a 5-4 victory over the Cape Cod Islanders.

“Coach Cam (Robichaud) thought we should take a timeout,” Simmons said. “I am not timeout guy … But we were down, I thought it was important and it gave me time to rile the guys up while (the assistant coaches) set the lineup. They set up a great lineup. It worked really well off of it and we buried one.”

Shayne Plummer and Walker Hamilton set up Labrie to tie the game up at four. Vrees finished the come-from-behind victory with a hat trick with Jonathan Donaghey and Patrick Halpin picking up the helpers with 1:37 remaining.

“The puck kept going down low and whenever they went low all their guys crashed one side,” Labrie said. “So I kept creeping in and make sure I had space. Plummer gave me a great feed. All I had to do was tap it in.”

If offense is your thing, the first 11-plus minutes of the game had plenty of it — the teams combined for five goals.

The Islanders jumped out to an early 2-0 with goals from Nick Marston and Chris O’Donnell. Marston skated in alone and went to the backhand at the 1:42 mark. O’Donnell’s goal came nearly two minutes later.

“I think we got out to a very strong start, but we weren’t able to play a full sixty minutes,” Cape Cod coach Jay Punsky said. “We got some penalty trouble and as a result we had to lean on some higher end guys — we got tired toward the third period there. We made some defensive lapses because we were tired. It was really a battle of special teams. The scored three power play goals out of their five (chances). I don’t know how many power plays we had, but we didn’t score a single power play goal.”

Cape Cod had seven power play chances.

L/A dug itself out of the two goal deficit when Labrie found Vrees, who put home his 24th goal of the year at the 4:08 mark.

Labrie has five points in the past two games after a hat trick against the Maine Wild on Saturday.

“He’s a kid that’s coming along, his speed is getting better, his adjustments are getting better,” Simmons said. “We have a new (defensemen) coming in next weekend and two solid (goaltenders) that we brought in. I think we are ready for a  (playoff) push.”

The Fighting Spirit had an 11 second 5-on-3 power play and they capitalized on the opportunity. Plummer, of Buxton, who just joined the team, found Matt Siegel for his ninth goal of the season at the 9:47 mark.

Cape Cod bounced back on the back half of the Fighting Spirit’s 5-on-3 power play, though, as Pollock scored a shorthanded goal.

The Islanders went to the power play three times in the final eight minutes of the first period, but couldn’t find the back of the net.

L/A went to the power play early in the second period and they had trouble setting anything up in the offensive zone. After the Islanders cleared the puck, Vrees received the puck out of his own end, went end-to-end skating through the Islanders and went top shelf to tie the game up at three at the 3:54 mark. Thomas Kuntz set up the power play marker.

“It got dumped out and I was towards the end of a shift,” Vrees said. “I at least wanted to get zone entry for the next unit coming out and I just saw a guy take a step. So I cut to the middle and some how got through all of them.” 

Walker Hamilton had a glorious chance to give the Fighting Spirit their first lead of the game as his snap shot from the right circle rang the cross bar. The Islanders cleared the puck to the neutral zone where Moore came in on Fighting Spirit goalie Aaron Callan and found the back of the cage with 6:48 remaining in the second.

Callan made 22 saves in the victory while and Anton Zemba stopped 32 saves in the losing effort.

nfournier@sunjournal.com