Wild Fall 4-1 for Second Straight Night
DES MOINES, IA – It felt like déjà vu all over again for the Iowa Wild on Saturday, as the team fell to the Grand Rapids Griffins for the second straight night, 4-1. This time Grand Rapids opened with three straight goals before Iowa got on the board. Sammy Walker scored four the Wild.
Iowa outshot Grand Rapids 12-7 in the first, but it would be the Griffins recording the only goal of the period. That came in 3:25 when Jonatan Berggren scored his eighth goal of the season. Berggren took a pass from Amadeus Lombardi along the left boards, moved in just inside the left face-off circle before lifting a wrist shot that beat Jesper Wallstedt to make it 1-0.
In the second, Grand Rapids scored two goals in the span of less than three minutes to extend their lead to three. The first came at 5:17 with the Griffins on the power-play. Marco Kasper passed the puck to Joel L’Esperance at the right face-off circle, who blasted a one-timer by the Iowa netminder.
At 8:51, Carter Mazur extended the lead to three. Albert Johannson made a perfect pass to the back door where Mazur was able to drill at home for his ninth of the year.
Iowa was looking like they would be blown out, but Walker cut the deficit to two at the 13:57 mark. Walker gained control the puck in the neutral zone, then was able to head the opposite direction on a breakaway. He tucked a wrist shot past the blocker of Michael Hutchinson for his sixth tally of the year.
The Wild continued to pressure to the third, but Hutchinson would not budge. With a little under five minutes left in the game, Iowa was on the power-play and opted to pull their netminder for the extra attacker. Josiah Didier was able to intercept a pass attempt, sending it the length of the ice for the empty net goal to seal the victory.
Wallstedt finished with 25 saves. Hutchinson had 29 saves for the Griffins.
The Iowa Wild (12-18-2) will travel to California next weekend to take on the San Diego Gulls (9-16-5). The first contest is on Friday with the puck dropping it 9:00 Iowa time.
by Robert Pannier
