CHARLOTTE, NC – The San Antonio Rampage (31-19-5-1) dropped their first shootout game of the season, losing 3-2 to the Charlotte Checkers (22-29-5-1) in front of 3,056 at Time Warner Cable Arena Wednesday night. The Rampage are now 4-1-0-1 against the Checkers this season, and are 4-4-1-1 after 10 games of this year’s Rodeo Road Trip.
Rocco Grimaldi and Shane O’Brien became the seventh and eighth Rampage players to enter double digits in goals this season.
Zach Boychuk gave the Checkers the first goal of the game, which came on the power play. He picked up the puck to the right of Michael Houser and flipped it over his pads and in for the lone tally of the first period.
Grimaldi picked up his own rebound at 5:25 of the second period and put the puck past Drew MacIntyre to tie the game 1-1. The teams remained tied into the second intermission despite the Rampage outshooting the Checkers 16-10 in the second stanza.
Trevor Carrick gave Charlotte the go-ahead goal at 3:26 of the final frame, and O’Brien tied the game at two at 12:22 on the power play. Butler had an opportunity to regain a Rampage lead with a penalty shot at 16:07, but the shot sailed just wide of the net and both teams remained locked at two at the end of regulation.
Additional time wasn’t enough to determine a winner, and in the sixth round of the shootout, Danny Biega gave the Checkers the 3-2 victory.
In his fifth start of the Rodeo Road Trip and 20th of the season, Houser stopped 32-of-34 shots. MacIntyre turned away 40-of-42 shots. All but one San Antonio skater had a shot on net, and Grimaldi had a team-high six shots.
KEY STAT
Howden picked up his first point since Dec. 28 with the assist on Grimaldi’s goal in his third game back after missing the previous 21 due to an upper-body injury.
The Rampage are now 0-3 in penalty shot attempts this year. San Antonio is 5-1 in shootouts this season, falling for the first time on the road to the Checkers in the shootout.
With Rampage game report
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