WEST VALLEY CITY, Utah – Charle-Edouard D’Astous scored 2 goals and 1 assist and Trent Miner saved 32 of 33 to lead the Utah Grizzlies to a 5-1 victory over the Rapid City Rush to advance to the Western Conference Finals for the first time since 2008. The Grizzlies will face the Toledo Walleye in round 3 of the 2022 Kelly Cup Playoffs.
D’Astous scored 5:07 into the contest with a power play goal to give Utah a 1-0 lead. It was his 10th playoffs power play goal which sets a new league record. Utah led 1-0 after 1 period, outshooting RC 15 to 8.
In the second period Brett Gravelle tied the game 19:38 in on a power play goal. The Rush went 1 for 5 on the power play and Utah was 1 for 2.
The Grizz scored 4 unanswered goals in the 3rd period to clinch the series win. D’Astous scored his second of the game and 17th of the postseason 3:25 in. D’Astous tied a league record with 17 goals in a single postseason. Luke Martin added some insurance with a shorthanded goal 5:13 in. Dakota Raabe added to the lead 12:20 in. Kyle Betts added a shorthanded empty net goal with 2:18 left in regulation. Utah scored 2 shorthanded goals in the third period. They lead the playoffs with 5 shorthanded goals.
Trent Miner is now 6-3 in the playoffs after stopping all but 1 in the win. Rapid City’s Lukas Parik saved 27 of 31 in the loss. Ben Tardif had 2 assists to give him a league leading 22 assists through 2 rounds of the playoffs.
Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals is on Friday night at Toledo’s Huntington Center. Face-off is at 5:35 pm mountain time and can be seen on FloHockey and heard on Mixlr.
With Utah Grizzlies release
You must be logged in to post a comment.