Stampede's Nine Game Winning Streak Comes To An End

Green Bay, WI—The Sioux Falls Stamped saw their nine-game winning streak come to an end Friday night at the Resch Center in Green Bay, as the Herd fell to the Gamblers 5-1. Sam Rothstein scored the lone goal for the Herd who dropped to 25-9-1, but still hold sole possession of first place in the Western Conference. Despite the loss, the Herd have still won 14 of their last 16 games and are now 2-1-0 on their current nine-game road swing.

The Gamblers (21-12-3) came out firing and tallied the first 11 shots on goal, but goaltender Charlie Lindgren was up to the test and kept Green Bay off the board. The Gamblers would break through with their league leading ninth shorthanded goal at 17:42 from Kyle Novak. Novak took a pass up the left wing boards from Barrett Kaib who flew past the Stampede defense and skated in the slot before wristing a shot past the stick side of Lindgren to give the Gamblers a 1-0 lead. Green Bay would take that lead into the locker room while outshooting the Herd 12-7 in the period.

In the second, Sioux Falls tied the game when Sam Rothstein tallied his 13^th goal of the season 8:46 in. Rothstein took the puck behind the Gamblers net before cutting in front of the crease and backhanding a shot past the glove of Gamblers netminder Tony Kujava to make it a 1-1 game. Play would go back-and-forth for the rest of the period and it appeared the game would be tied heading into the intermission, but the Gamblers changed that with just 14 seconds remaining. Nicholas Schilkey brought the puck through the slot and sent a pass inside the left circle to Sheldon Dries who one-timed the puck past the glove side of Lindgren and into the upper left hand corner of the net to give the Gamblers a 2-1 lead after two periods. The Gamblers outshot the Herd 9-8 in the period.

That momentum would carry over into the third period for Green Bay as they tallied three more goals to pull away 5-1. Grigory Dikushin put the Gamblers up 3-1 when he scored unassisted 5:02 into the period. Kyle Novak scored at 7:54 on the powerplay when he one-timed a pass at the bottom of the left circle to give the Gamblers a 4-1 advantage. Novak completed the hat trick and the scoring on the night at 14:47 when he broke across on a 2-on-1 and one-timed a pass from Nick Schmaltz into the back of the net.

Green Bay outshot the Herd 7-2 in the third period and 28-17 in the game.

Sioux Falls will look to get back into the win column on Saturday when they travel to Cedar Rapids to face the RoughRiders at 7:05 PM.

Courtesy: Jim Olander