ROCKFORD, Ill. — In what turned out to be the most exciting game of the series, the Texas Stars completed their sweep of the Rockford IceHogs in round one of the Calder Cup playoffs. The win put the Stars into the second round for the first time in their short history, against either the Chicago Wolves or Milwaukee Admirals. Milwaukee has won two straight games to come back from the dead, forcing a seventh and deciding game in Chicago next Monday night (April 26).
Texas was rolling along with a 3-0 lead in the final period when Rockford winger Kyle Beach scored his first of two power play goals in the game, narrowing the score to 3-1. This seemed to follow the series pattern where Texas jumped out to a lead, Rockford scored a single goal in the third period and everything else got vacuumed up by goaltender Brent Krahn and the Texas defense.
“We got a good push on their forwards,” Assistant Captain Maxime Fortunus said. “We applied pressure on their D-men from game one and put some doubt in their minds.”
But it wouldn’t be that easy this time. With just a few minutes left in regulation, Trevor Ludwig was given a delay of game for covering the puck with his hand, followed less than a minute later by a tripping call on Francis Wathier, leading to a two-man advantage for Rockford.
The Stars were able to kill off the two-man advantage (oddly, Rockford did not pull their goaltender while up two men), but Beach took a point blank shot from the slot that trickled into the net with just 35 seconds left to close within a goal. The IceHogs pressured Krahn after the center ice faceoff, but the Stars were able to escape the defensive zone and Warren Peters iced the cake with an empty net goal and a final score of 4-2.
Texas opened the scoring on a power play goal by Andrew Hutchinson from the high slot, assisted by Travis Morin and Landon wilson. Hutchinson scored a similar power play goal, set up by Morin and Perttiu Lindgren, in the third period that turned out to be the game-winner. Mathieu Beaudoin scored the only even strength goal of the contest for either team, assisted by Lindgren and Jamie Benn.
Benn, who beat IceHog goaltender Corey Crawford on a nifty breakaway move in game one, had an opportunity to extend the lead to 4-1 with a similar breakaway chance half way through period three, but this time he was stopped cold by Crawford, momentarily keeping them in the game.
Krahn gave up just five goals in the series for a 1.25 goals against average. He never surrendered a goal in periods one or two. Krahn faced 125 shots, stopping 120 for a .96 save percentage.
“We got the first goal every night,” Krahn said. “We knew if we pushed hard (and scored first), then the other team is (trying to) stay alive and they become desperate and deflated. (The team) did a great job of getting leads, holding leads, blocking shots and paying the price. It was a full team effort.”
Rockford played very undisciplined hockey in games one and two and seemed to have a game plan that was not in sync with head Coach Bill Peters. After game two, Peters commented that “if they don’t get their emotions under control, it will be a short series.” He was almost right.
They got their emotions under control, but it was too little, too late. They simply didn’t have enough offense, defense or goaltending to counteract the Texas Stars game plan.
“Game three had the same intensity as games one and two,” Stars’ forward Francis Wathier said. “I have to compliment the ref in game three for settling everyone down and not allowing (either team) to be chippy. Discipline is number one for us anyway. We focus on specialty teams and we don’t have anyone that runs around and does stupid things.”
Rockford leaves the playoffs having lost ten straight Calder Cup playoff games, going back to 2008. This is the second year in a row they’ve been swept.
Contact mitch.cooper@prohockeynews.com
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