BOSSIER City, La. – Down two games to the favored Colorado Eagles the the Bossier-Shreveport Mudbugs found themselves playing without their fiery head coach, Scott Muscutt, who was suspended for his actions at the end of game 2 in Colorado. Muscutt let his displeasure with a late penalty call against Travis Clayton boil over into a stick and bottle tossing display.
Trevor Buchanan is a worthy assistant and it is doubtful that the bench boss had anything to do with the Mudbugs loss. It was a closely played game with each team having chances to break it open and in the overtime period the Eagles simply got the first good bounce to win the game.
Konrad Reeder. Photo by Terry Sanford
As in the previous two games of this playoff series the Colorado Eagles managed to get on the scoreboard first with Ed McGrane extending his point streak to 23 games (combined in the regular season and playoffs). Assisted by the skillful passing of Scott Polaski and Greg Pankewicz, McGrane popped the puck past Mudbugs ‘tender, Ken Carroll, at the 9:06 mark for the only goal of the first period.
In period two, the Mudbugs did as they did in the second period of game two in Colorado, they took over the game and fought for every inch of ice they could grab. Their hard work paid off when they tied the score on their first power play goal of the series when Travis Clayton got one through Andrew Penner at 13:41. That knot was short lived however as Colorado, despite being out played, bided their time and with less than 30 seconds left in the middle period Konrad Reeder used his scoring touch to direct a Pankewicz cross-crease pass into the net at 19:25 to reinstate the Eagles one goal lead.
Early in the third period Brett Smith scored for the Mudbugs on a hard shot that forced it’s way between Penner’s arm and the post to tie the game at two apiece. The tie held up for the remainder of the back-and-forth third stanza.
Andrew Penner Photo by Terry Sanford
Something different was added to the playoff rivalry tonight as the two teams played their first playoff overtime game. Fraser Filipic, who is often praised as being a grinder and solid checking forward as well as pound-for-pound one of the toughest guys in the league, showed his scoring skill by smacking the rebound of Scott Polaski’s shot behind Carroll at 6:47 in overtime for the game-winner.
With the next, and possibly series-ending, game not scheduled to be played until Monday the Eagles will travel to Dallas in order to get more access to practice ice for the three day break between games three and four.
Game four will be Monday, April 6th 2009 at 7:05 CST.
Contact the author at terry.sanford@prohockeynews.com
