BOISE, ID — Joe Faust’s first goal of the season just 1:23 into the game launched a three-goal first period that fueled the Idaho Steelheads (15-7-4) to a 5-2 win over the Rapid City Rush (7-16-0) on Wednesday night at CenturyLink Arena.
The Steelheads have won seven of their last nine games, and all four meetings this season with the Rush. Rapid City has lost six in a row.
Faust opened the scoring on a power play wrister from the left point, beating Rapid City’s Adam Vey low to the blocker side to give Idaho a 1-0 lead. Cody Corbett earned one of his two assists on the play, tying him for the league lead with eleven power play assists on the season.
At 12:00 of the first period, Steve McParland and Tommy Thompson raced down the ice to expand the lead, executing a give-and-go that ended with a tap-in for McParland’s 12th goal of the season. McParland has three goals in the past two games, and five in the last nine.
Just 1:38 after McParland’s goal, Henrik Samuelsson made it 3-0 with a redirection of a Will Merchant pass up over Vay’s shoulder. Merchant curled to the right-wing boards off the rush and slid the puck to Samuelsson at the side of the net for the finish, Samuelsson’s ninth goal of the year.
The Steelheads led 4-0 with 4:03 left in the second period when Merchant rifled a Samuelsson feed over Vay’s shoulder from the left point for his sixth goal of the season. The goal came seconds after a Rush penalty expired.
The Rush battled back with two goals in the third period with Jimmy DeVito and Pavel Jenys both scoring with under nine minutes to go to bring the Rush within two goals. That’s as close as they would get, with Corbin Baldwin firing his first of the season into an empty net with 31 seconds remaining.
Merchant, Corbett, Samuelsson, and AJ White all had two-point nights for the Steelheads.
Philippe Desrosiers stopped 33 of 35 shots to improve to 11-2-2 on the season. Desrosiers’ shutout bid was snapped at 11:09 of the third period by DeVito’s goal, snapping Idaho’s shutout streak at 111:48 dating back to the third period of Friday night’s game against Utah.
The Steelheads’ victory moved them into a share for second place in the Mountain Division with the Wichita Thunder, with both teams totaling 34 points in the standings. The Thunder make their first ever visit to CenturyLink Arena this Friday for a two-game series. Puck-drop is scheduled for 7:10 p.m. MT.
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