BOISE, ID – The Idaho Steelheads (19-9-3-0-0) fell to the Rapid City Rush (14-14-2-0) 6-3 on Saturday night at Idaho Central Arena. The season series ends tied, with the Steelheads ending the eight-game set with a 4-3-1-0 record. Idaho is next in action on Wednesday at home against the Greensboro Gargoyles.
Idaho opened the scoring late in the first period on the power play as Angus MacDonell collected a loose puck and deposited it for his sixth goal of the season. Rapid City responded later in the frame with a power play goal of their own from Brady Keeper for his first in the ECHL.
Just before the period ended Rapid City’s Darian Pilon was assessed a match penalty for a takedown of Kaleb Pearson near the benches, with Pearson eventually being stretchered off the ice after the incident.
Moving toward the second period, the lone goal came from Quinn Olson who struck on the power play at 8:58 of the frame to give the Rush a 2-1 lead.
In the third period the flood gates opened, first with Idaho tying the game 30 seconds in on a goal from Liam Malmquist. Just under eight minutes later Blake Bennett netted a nifty goal, stick handling around Jake Barczewski to put the Rush ahead once again.
Not to be denied Idaho found another equalizer at 12:44, with Francesco Arcuri scoring on a beautiful individual effort after shaking off Brady Keeper and beating Connor Murphy on the blocker side.
The final response would come from the Rush, however, as Ryan Chyzowski scored his 13th of the season under two minutes later on a loose puck in front to put Rapid City ahead 4-3. Chyzowski scored again in short order after receiving a long stretch pass from Keeper and beating Barczewski over the glove at 17:10. The final goal of the game came from Bennett who scored into an empty net to seal the 6-3 win.
Barczewski stopped 16 of the 21 Rush shots he faced in the loss, while Murphy saved 45 of 48 shots in the win.
ICCU THREE STARS
1) Blake Bennett (RC, 2-2-4, +1, 4 shots)
2) Connor Murphy (RC, 45 saves, win)
3) Ryan Chyzowski (RC, 2-0-2, +1, 3 shots)
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