By WJBC Staff
GENEVA – The Bloomington Thunder could not pull off the same heroics as their Friday night affair with the Chicago Steel, falling 3-1 to their foes from the north on Wednesday.
Despite a scoreless first period, the Thunder couldn’t muster enough offense to beat a tough defensive effort by Chicago, who allowed only 19 shots in the game. Bloomington (8-8-2-1) falls into a three way tie for third place in the Eastern Conference with 19 points, while the Steel (7-9-2-1) nip at their heels with 17 points.
Chicago would break the scoreless tie in the second period. A shot from Ruslan Rakhmatov went just under the crossbar six minutes into the period to give Chicago the lead. Christiano Versich and Brandon Duhaime picked up assists on the defenseman’s second of the season.
Blake Gober would tie the game for the Thunder with a redirected shot from Butrus Ghafari to tie the game. The goal was Gober’s fifth of the season. The assistant captain now has ten points this season. Two minutes later, Rakhmatov would net his second of the night. The defenseman fired another shot in off the post to retake the lead with only 20 seconds left before the intermission.
Tensions flared in a physical game but resulted in just two penalties and power plays. The Thunder were called at the end of the second for cross checking and killed off the full two minutes to take back some momentum. The Steel came right back and answered with a goal from Duhaime who earned his second point of the game. The shot was another just under the cross bar and gave the Steel a 3-1 lead. Rakhmatov earned an assist on the goal, giving him three points in the game and the number one star.
Bloomington grabbed chances late with the goaltender pulled but could not rally the comeback. They drop their second consecutive game for the first time since October 17 against the Fargo Force.
Logan Halladay suffers the loss for Bloomington in the game despite 24 saves in the game and John Lethemon picks up his sixth win of the year with 18 saves.
The Thunder play their next game on Friday from the U.S. Cellular Coliseum. They will battle with Team USA for the first time this season as the top 17-year-olds will make their debut in Bloomington. The U-17’s feature some of the top talent in the United States and have prospects for the 2017 NHL Draft.
