Steelheads' late flurry not enough to silence the Thunder

The Idaho Steelheads (21-14-2), despite a flurry late in the game, fell to the Stockton Thunder (16-17-5) by a 4-3 score in front of 7,884 fans at the Stockton Arena. Marty Flichel opened the scoring for Idaho less than five minutes into the hockey game on a big rip from the top of the left wing circle; Kris Sparre found Flichel wide-open heading into the offensive end to earn the assist. Darrell Hay, on the power play, made it 2-0 Steelheads at 13:28 of the first with assists going to Ben Nelson and Mark Bomersback. Igor Gongalsky banged home the first Stockton goal of the evening at 16:35, which gave way to tonight?s Teddy Bear Toss at the Stockton Arena; the goal would be the final of the first period. The period ended with the Steelheads in front 2-1. The Thunder scored the only two tallies of the second period; the first came at 1:17 from Mike LaLonde, assisted by James Bates and Ryan Huddy. About three minutes later, Huddy scored to make it 3-2 in Stockton?s favor, assisted by Bates and LaLonde. The tally was a power play goal. At 4:43 of the third period, Gongalsky scored his second of the game to put Stockton in front 4-2. The goal was his ninth, assisted by Craig Valette and Judd Blackwater. Bomersback scored from a sharp angle at 9:31, his eighth, assisted by Tyler Shelast. The Steelheads continued to battle down the stretch, and had a quality scoring opportunity in the final five seconds with Matt Climie pulled from the net, but could not solve Stockton goalie Andrew Perugini in the waning seconds. Climie fell to 13-8-0 with the loss, stopping 23 of 27 shots for Idaho. Perugini improved to 6-6-2 with the win; he steered aside 27 of 30 shots for the Thunder.