DES MOINES, Iowa – The Iowa Wild opened the first game of a weekend home-and-home with a 5-2 loss to the Rockford IceHogs at Casey’s Center on Friday night.
With the Wild on the power play, Caedan Bankier split the Rockford defense and set up Nicolas Aubé-Kubel to open the scoring at 13:40 of the first period. Jack Peart picked up a secondary assist on the game’s first goal.
Cavan Fitzgerald converted on a 2-on-1 to tie the game 3:02 later.
Brett Seney beat William Rousseau (22 saves) over the glove on a breakaway with 36 seconds remaining in the first period to give Rockford a 2-1 lead ahead of the first intermission.
Iowa outshot Rockford 9-6 in the first periods.
Ben Jones tied the game with another power-play goal 3:41 into the middle frame. After Rousseau sent a stretch pass for Hunter Haight, Jones collected a centering feed and roofed the puck over Olivier Rodrigue (17 saves).
Jake Furlong restored Rockford’s lead with a wrister that banked in off a Wild defender at 17:05.
Rockford outshot Iowa 17-14 through 40 minutes.
Joey Anderson provided the IceHogs with an insurance goal 4:39 into the third period and Seney added his second goal of the game with 2:16 to play.
Rockford outshot Iowa 27-19. The Wild finished 2-for-6 with the man advantage while the IceHogs went 1-for-2 on the power play.
Iowa and Rockford meet again on Saturday, Apr. 4 at 7 p.m. at BMO Center.
