SHREVEPORT, LA- On Stick It To Cancer Night, the Mudbugs honored the lives of those affected by cancer by skating on the George’s Pond ice with the names of loved ones in Purple paint. The Bugs took on the New Mexico Ice Wolves in the return to South Division action after the NAHL Showcase. The Bugs came into the contest at 5-1-1 looking to continue the momentum they picked up in Blaine, while the Ice Wolves who came in at 1-5-0-0 looked to get back in the winning column.
In the First Period the scoring started early as the Ice Wolves and Jake Kasay at 19:50 in the 1st Period scored off a puck deflection off the dasher boards that went through the skates of Bugs Goaltender Kristers Plepis. Then at 15:11, Ryan Baert equalized the game with a goal right off the faceoff draw to make it 1-1.
Second period action saw Baert get back on the score sheet with an opportunistic goal after New Mexico’s Jackson Silverberg came out of net to play it and Anthony Brereton found the puck and fed it to Baert on the empty doorstep to make it 2-1 Mudbugs.
The third period saw much more scoring as the Ice Wolves scored two quick goals to put them ahead 3-2 midway through the period with their goals coming from Parker Thompson on the power-play to tie it and Anthony Leech to give the Ice Wolves the lead. But, a minute and eleven seconds later, Jeremiah Roberts had the equalizer to send it to Overtime.
In the overtime frame, the ice seemed to have been tilted slightly for the Bugs but nothing got past Silverberg and on the other side, the Ice Wolves couldn’t get anything past Kristers Plepis so to the shootout the game went. In the Shootout, Max Stracar shot for New Mexico first and was denied, then Evan Hoglund for the Bugs was also denied. The second round saw Anthony Leech’s attempt poked away by Plepis and then “Diamond” Duke Ehrhard got the lone and winning shootout goal for the Bugs with Porter Bayer’s attempt being stoned cold by Plepis for the Bugs to pick up their sixth win on the season so far. The Mudbugs with that 4-3 win improve to 6-1-1 on this season while the Ice Wolves drop to 1-5-0-1. Kristers Plepis stopped 13 of 16 shots faced with Jackson Silverberg for New Mexico stopping 22 of 25.
The Bugs are back in action against these same Ice Wolves on Saturday Night for Food-Ball Night as the Bugs are hosting a food drive benefiting Food banks across Northwest Louisiana in which the winning box representing either the NFLs New Orleans Saints or the Dallas Cowboys will see the Bugs wear jerseys inspired by them during game action with the “loser” box jersey being worn during Warmups. You can get tickets for the game by calling the front office at 318-636-7094, or by going online to tickets.georgespond34.com.
If you can’t make it out to George’s Pond however, you can watch the action on NATV or listen to the Audio only feed on the Mudbugs Audio Network through our YouTube channel. Duncan Welker has the call with the Landers Pregame Warmup Show starting at 6:50 and Puck Drop set for 7:11 PM Central Time