Matchup: Utah Grizzlies at Idaho Steelheads, Wednesday, 7 PM. Alaska Aces at Idaho Steelheads, Friday/Saturday, 7 PM. All games played at Qwest Arena.
Déjà vu all over again? Barely a week ago, Idaho played two games against Alaska and a third game against Utah in a three-day span. Now here we are again. Idaho split the two contests with the Aces in Boise before bussing down to West Valley City to beat the Grizzlies in overtime, a win that improved Idaho’s record to an ECHL-best 18-4-1 after the first week of December.
Home-heavy: After opening the season with only seven home games in the first seven weeks, this three-game set concludes a stretch of eight home games in 17 days. The team returns to the Qwest Arena ice on New Year’s Eve.
Helping out on offense: Defensemen, much like offensive linemen in football, often don’t get the credit they deserve because they don’t accumulate a big pile of gaudy statistics. Rookie defenseman Brendan Milnamow is out to change that. Through Idaho’s first 23 games, the Union College product had 13 points – pretty solid for a blue-liner – and is on pace for a 41-point season. None of Idaho’s d-men topped 40 points last season.
Marty Flichel led the way with a hat trick for the Idaho Steelheads (21-5-2) tonight in a 4-2 win over the Alaska Aces (11-13-2) in front of 4,225 fans at Qwest Arena. Flichel is now riding a five-game point streak, as the Steelheads have now won back-to-back games.
With the Steelheads on the power play in the first period, John Swanson batted a rebound out of mid-air for the game’s first goal at the 7:09 mark; Ashton Rome and Evan Barlow assisted on Swanson’s eighth of the season.
At 9:33, Nick Mazzolini scored a power play goal of his own for the Aces, who quickly answered to tie the game at 1-1. John Lammers and T.J. Fast assisted on Mazzolini’s 12th of the season.
Flichel scored the first of his three on the evening at 2:21 of the second period as he took a drop pass from Brandan Kushniruk on the left wing and rifled a slap shot by Alaska goalie Sebastian Dahm. Cody Lampl also assisted on Flichel’s sixth of the season.
At 14:39, Flichel scored his seventh of the season- and second of the game- after Kushniruk bounce a puck toward the net, and Adam Huxley found Flichel for the open shot at the bottom of the left circle.
With the Steelheads up 3-1 early in the third period, former Steelhead John Lammers scored a power play goal to give Alaska some life late in the contest. Ryan Turek and Nick Mazzolini assisted on Lammers’ 15th of the season.
Flichel, however, was not done; he completed the hat trick at 10:47 with his eighth of the season, beating Dahm from point-blank. Rome and Michael Neal assisted on the final goal of the hockey game.
Rejean Beauchemin improves to 11-3-1 with the win; he stopped 24 of 26 shots. Dahm is 6-8-0; he stopped 28 of 32 in the loss.
The Steelheads and Aces are back in action tomorrow night at Qwest Arena. The puck drops at 7:10 PM MST.