Explosive First Period Lifts Fighting Saints to Win over Steel
October 10, 2022 – United States Hockey League (USHL) – Dubuque Fighting Saints News Release
Geneva, IL – Coming off their fist set of consecutive losses this season, the Dubuque Fighting Saints offense stormed into Geneva on Friday night looking to come alive.
For the first time this season, Saints head coach Kirk MacDonald made drastic alterations to his lines before Friday night’s matchup against the Chicago Steel. The Saints two Swedish forwards, Oliver Moberg and Nils Juntorp, were split apart for the first time. MacDonald also reunited the trio of Jacob Jeannette, Max Montes, and Riley Stuart that was featured at times during the preseason and debuted an all new fourth line combination of Gavin Cornforth, Shawn O’Donnell, and James Reeder. Beyond that, MacDonald and his coaching staff gave rookie Jake Sondreal a huge opportunity with a top-6 role in his USHL debut.
The changes paid dividends early. Oliver Moberg got to scoring started on the power play as the recipient of a tic-tac-toe set up. Max Burkholder skated into the left wing circle and wired a pass through a seam accross the ice to Ryan St. Louis who calmy waited for Chicago goaltender Chritian Manz to over commit before teeing up Moberg for an easy tap in.The offense continued to roll thanks to Mikey Burchill, who grew up just an hour away from Geneva and had a large contingent of family and friends in attendance, and Riley Stuart scoring 90 seconds apart to push the Saints lead to 3-0 just 12:32 into the hockey game.
Chicago got on the board late in the first after Jayden Perron’s centering pass bounced off of numerous skates and sticks before Macklin Celebrini settled it down just enough to flub a shot past Saints goaltender Marcus Brännman to cut the deficit to 3-1.
The Saints new third line of Jeannette, Montes, and Stuart however continued to gel offensively as the period wore on. Saints defenseman Theo Wallberg intercepted a blind centering pass as Chicago was looking to exit their zone with just 17 seconds left. Wallberg slipped a nifty back handed pass to Jeannette inside the hash marks and Jeannette ripped a worm burner through the five-hole of Manz to give the Saints a 4-1 lead heading into the first intermission.
In the second period, Ryan St. Louis dug out a puck during a scramble in front of Manz and flipped up over his pad to extend the Saints lead to 5-1 with another power play goal. And credit should be awarded to the officials for not blowing the play dead early with a hoard of bodies on top of the crease and the puck still loose.
After the St. Louis goal with 13:04 remaining in the 2nd period and a 5-1 lead, it looked like the Saints were poised to run away with an comfortable win against the Eastern Conference leading Steel. But, there’s a reason the Steel are at the top of the standings in the early goings of the season. They’ve been resiliant and have managed to beat teams even when they’ve been outshot and outplayed in more games than not.
Mick Thompson started the comeback effort for the Steel 14:19 into the 2nd period. Thompson drove the net as Perron entered the zone and put on the brakes. Two Saints went at Perron leaving Thompson all alone in front of Brännman to cut the deficit to three. Then, off the ensuing face-off, Trevor Taulien took a hooking penalty to put Chicago on the power play. One face-off win and a few passes later, the lead was down to just 5-3 after a Nick Moldenhauer wrist shot.
All of a sudden, what could have been a walk in the park third period, became a tightly defended effort for Dubuque. The tightness could be felt as the Fighting Saints pressed to keep the Steel from coming back from a four goal deficit. The tension finally snapped after Chicago’s Nolan Joyce picked off a breakout pass and fed Celebrini in the slot for his second goal of the night with just under ten minutes to play.
The Saints managed a critical penalty kill shortly after the second Celebrini goal as the clock slowly bled down to the final minute. Chicago burned it’s timeout to draw up a set play, but a diving Ryan St. Louis broke up the play and would eventually skate the puck down into the empty net, literally, to seal the Saints second victory of the season and improve to 2-2-0-0.
Up Next
The Fighting Saints continue their eight game road trip to open the season with another single game series in Des Moines on Saturday. However, due to a recent scheduling change, the game will now be played at the RecPlex, still in Des Moines, at 6:05 p.m. CT.
You can listen to the action on the Saints official radio partner Eagle 102.3 or watch the action live on FloHockey. The Saints home opener is set for Friday, November 4th at 7:05 p.m. vs. Madison. Tickets are available online.
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