It took an extra week, but the Wichita Thunder played their home opener on Friday, and it proved to not be the festive occasion the team was looking for as Trent Miner stopped 27 shots to lead the Utah Grizzlies to a 3-0 victory. Utah scored one goal in each period, and Trey Bradley added two assists to lead the Grizzlies. Evan Butenhuis stopped 27 shots for Wichita.

Utah dominated play early on, outshooting Wichita 9-3 through the first 16 minutes of the first period. The Grizzlies were controlling the puck and that helped them to take the lead 16:53 into the period on a beautiful setup by Trey Bradley. Bradley saw Tyler Penner moving down the slot and made a perfect pass through a Thunder defenseman onto the stick of Penner. Buitenhuis looked to try to poke the puck off the stick of Penner, but the Utah forward made a nice move to his backhand, tucking it through the legs of Buitenhuis for his second goal of the year.

The one-goal lead held for nearly 17 minutes before the Grizzlies extended the lead thanks to a great effort by Connor Graham. Graham built up some speed heading behind the net, looking to tuck the puck inside the far post on the wraparound attempt, but Buitenhuis was able to quickly slide over to block the attempt. Unfortunately for the Thunder, the puck went right to Quinn Ryan, who was left alone at the opposite side of the net. He simply blasted in the loose puck for his second goal of the season to give Utah a 2-0 lead.

The Grizzlies held onto the two-goal lead entering the second intermission and should have had another goal but a great play by Buitenhuis foiled the attempt. A great pass fed Mason Mannek at the far post on what looked like the perfect redirect, but the Wichita netminder followed the puck perfectly, sliding over just in time to make a great pad save.

Utah came out of the second break and scored 74 seconds into the period on a perfect feed. Bradley had the puck near the point, firing a perfect pass to Andrew Nielsen at the backdoor. He blasted a one-timer by Buitenhuis, to give the Grizzlies a 3-0 lead.

That was all the support that Miner needed. He was not tested often in this game, but came up big each time he was. Wichita put 20 shots on the Grizzlies netminder over the final 40 minutes, but Miner came up big each time he was challenged.

The shutout was the second in a row for Miner who blanked Idaho on Sunday. Utah has now scored at least three goals in all four of their games.

The Wichita Thunder welcome the Wheeling Nailers on Saturday. This is the first time that Wheeling has ever visited INTRUST Arena. The puck drops at 7:05.

Gamesheet

By Robert Pannier