STEELHEADS TAKE RUBBER MATCH IN SERIES

(BOISE, ID) – Brenden Walker kept his stellar week rolling and Terrence Wallin scored a second goal in as many nights, but the Idaho Steelheads took the rubber match against the Rapid City Rush with a 5-2 win on Saturday night.

The Rush jumped on first for the first time in the series when Brenden Walker continued his red-hot week. On a dump in into the Steelheads zone with 1:28 gone by in the game, Walker beat everyone to the puck and rifled a shot by Steelheads goaltender Branden Komm to notch his seventh point of the week and give the Rush a 1-0 lead (Ryan Misiak notched the lone assist). Idaho countered over the midway point of the period when Rob Linsmayer squared things up. With 12:57 gone by, Anthony Luciani and Linsmayer went on a two-on-one break down the ice. Rush net-minder Adam Morrison made a great post-to-post save, but Linsmayer settled the rebound and squeaked a backhander by Morrison to tie the game at 1-1 heading into the second period (Luciani had the lone assist).

Idaho jumped out to a three-goal lead in the second before the Rush cut the deficit heading into the final frame. Travis Walsh notched his second in as many nights in the series when he fired a shot from the far wall through traffic to be Morrison up high, putting the Steelheads on top 2-1 with 3:32 gone by in the second (Joe Basaraba and Travis Ewanyk assisted). Moments later, Idaho went on a break up the ice and Connor Chatham made it a 3-1 advantage with the a wrister over the glove of Morrison with 6:24 left in the frame (Anthony Luciani recorded the lone assist, his second of the game). Rob Linsmayer expanded the Steelheads lead to 4-1 when he batted a rebound in front of Morrison off of a rush up the ice to earn his second goal of the contest with 3:07 left in the second (Anthony Luciani got his third assist of the game, while Jefferson Dahl got his first). With 1:11 left in the frame, Terrence Wallin scored his second goal in as many games for the Rush on a brilliant individual effort that saw him glove a bouncing puck, settle it, maneuver backhand-to-forehand, and tuck the puck by Komm to make it a 4-2 game (Nick Miglio garnered the lone helper).

Travis Ewanyk finished the scoring entries when he slammed a slapshot from Kyle Jean late in the third period that went off of the post and in, bringing the game to our final score of 5-2 with 10:05 left in the contest (Jean got the lone assist).

Adam Morrison stopped 39 of 44 shots in suffering the loss (5-3-2).

The Rush return home for a five game homestand against the Alaska Aces and Idaho Steelheads to close out 2016. The games against Alaska come on Wednesday, December 21st, at 6:35 p.m. MST and Friday, December 23rd, at 7:05 p.m. before the Christmas holiday. Friday’s game marks “Dream Protectors Night”, which is our way of showing our appreciation to our local first responders. For more information on that and more, call the Rush office at 716-PUCK.

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