LOVELAND, Colo – The final score was the same as Friday night but Saturday night’s 4-3 Colorado Eagles loss to the visiting Bossier-Shreveport Mudbugs in the Northern Conference semifinals was a very different game than the one played twenty four hours before.
During Saturday night’s game, the teams traded goals back and forth for the most part, with no team ever having better than a one goal lead.
Bossier-Shreveport starting goalie, John DeCaro was injured in the latter half of the first period and left the ice in pronounced pain. His replacement, Ken Carroll, stepped in and provided an equally high level of net-minding for the Mudbugs.
Ken Carroll
Less than 90 seconds later, Dave Pszenyczny, set up by Joe Ori and Jamie Milam, recorded the Mudbugs’ first goal of the night at the 15:57 mark.
In the second period, each team netted a goal with Ori and Brett Smith providing the supporting cast for Joe Blaznek’s goal at 6:19 and Eagle Ryan McLeod tallying on a power play at 12:53 with assists from Aaron Schneekloth and Brett Lutes.
Ryan Mcleod and Travis Clayton
True to form, the Colorado Eagles answered back two minutes later when Ulanski worked a puck past Carroll at 3:50 into the third period. Tobler and Jim Jackson assisted on the play.
The final goal of the game was scored on a breakaway by Ori. Set up by Smith and Blaznek, Ori had all the time in the world to skate across in front of the goal mouth and deke Eagle’s net-minder Andrew Penner out of position and deposit the puck into the vacated portion of the net for what turned out to be the game winner.
Mudbugs scoring line celebrates
The players and head coach Kevin McClelland had similar things to say about the resumption of the series in Bossier-Shreveport on Tuesday.
“It takes 4 games to win the series and we are not even close to being out of it,” defenseman Jason Beatty said. “We just have to go into Shreveport like they came in here – be positive and take it one shift at a time and go forward.”
“More of the same is what we need,” award winning forward, Kevin Ulanski said. “The battle was there; the effort was there; a couple of bad bounces around the net weren’t landing on our sticks along with some mental breakdowns leading to odd man rushes…we need to take care of that.”
Captain Riley Nelson put it simply.
“We have a long trip ahead of us; we can’t sit around and dwell on it (the losses).
“They came up here and won two games…we have go down there and match that,” Coach McClelland said, repeating the theme. “We play well on the road.”
Game 3 in this Northern Conference Semifinal series is Tuesday March 30th in Bossier-Shreveport, La.
Contact the author/photographer at terry.sanford@prohockeynews.com