RAPID CITY, SD – The Utah Grizzlies defeated the Rapid City Rush 4-2 Wednesday night at Rushmore Plaza Civic Center.
“I thought we played a pretty good game,” Utah Head Coach/General Manager Tim Branham said. “There’s some things that we can cleanup Thursday at practice. At times we controlled the game and at times we got ourselves in a little trouble with a lack of focus and turnovers.”
Jon Puskar scored his 20th and 21st goals of the year in the contest and Anaheim Ducks prospect Kevin Boyle stopped 37 of 39 for the win a day after being reassigned back to the Grizzlies.
“Kevin just calms things down,” Branham said about his rookie goalie. “He kills pucks, controls the game and he’s cool, calm and collected back there. Right now, both of our goalies are rolling and you can’t go wrong putting either in the net.”
“We came away with the win,” Boyle said. That’s the most important thing and I think we got better as the game went on.”
Puskar gave Utah a 1-0 lead 3:07 into the first period as he crashed the net as C.J. Eick and Erik Higby grinded down low. The goal by Puskar came as he returned to the lineup after getting hurt on March 17 and missing four-straight games.
Rapid City led 2-1 after one period as they scored two goals 27 seconds apart; first on the power-play following a fortuitous bounce that landed in the slot and then off of the ensuing face-off.
Utah took the lead back with two goals 5:22 apart in the first 6:32 of the second. Zac Larazza took a feed in transition for his third goal in two games from Erik Bradford and Mathieu Aubin.
Puskar then struck again after two near misses in front of the net. He came from behind for the score again from Eick and Higby.
The Grizzlies made it 4-2 as Larraza fed Marc-Andre Levesque for a breakaway and the rebound was knocked in by Colin Martin for his 21st goal of the year.
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