By Riley Pollock 17-03-23
Strong start, strong finish, and a little luck of the Irish!
The Roughnecks took down the rival, Saskatchewan Rush 11-6 on Friday night’s St. Patrick’s Day party at the Rough House in front of 17,444 fans.
Calgary moves to 9-4 on the season as a result, with the Rush falling to 5-7.
Both defence’s stood tall for the first half of the first-quarter before the Roughnecks finally broke through thanks to a rocket from captain Jesse King to make the score 1-0.
Tanner Cook followed up with his 19 goal of the season to make it 2-0.
Saskatchewan would answer back with one before Jeff Cornwall scored in transition short handed to make the score 3-1.
King scored his second of the night on the powerplay making the score 4-1 after 15-minutes.
The Roughnecks added to their lead in the second-quarter as Kyle Waters found the back of the net to make it 5-1.
Tyler Pace scored next, in his first game back after missing two games due to injury, to extend the run to four, 6-1.
Saskatchewan would finally end the run scoring to make it 6-2 with 4:25 to go in the half.
That would be the score heading into the break.
The Riggers were able to kill two penalties in the first eight-minutes of the third-quarter with neither team being able to find the back of the net.
Saskatchewan would be the first on the board in the third to cut the Roughnecks lead to 6-3.
The Roughnecks penalty trouble would continue and Saskatchewan would take advantage of it to make the score 6-4.
Calgary would take their eighth penalty of the night heading into the fourth quarter.
The Rush pushed their run to four with a goal early in the final frame to make the score 6-5.
The Riggers ended the run first, with a powerplay goal from King for his hat-trick, then Dan Taylor scored his first of the night shortly after to make the score 8-5.
Pace scored on another powerplay to make the score 9-5 before King picked up his fourth of the night to essentially salt the game away 10-5 with just over halfway to go in the fourth-quarter
The fourth-quarter beating continued as Pace got his hat-trick to make the score 11-5.
Saskatchewan would get one back with under five-minutes to go making it 11-6. That would be the final score.
Christian Del Bianco was a brick wall all night long on the way to picking up career save number 3000.
Josh Currier reached 100 assists in his career while Jeff Cornwall scored point number 100 in the league.
By The Numbers:
Tyler Pace: 3g, 5a
Jesse King 3g, 4a
Dan Taylor: 1g, 2a
Tanner Cook: 1g, 1a
Josh Currier: 2a
Jeff Cornwall: 1g
Zach Currier: 16 loose balls
Christian Del Bianco: 32 saves
Next Up:
The Roughnecks and Rush battle again in Saskatoon next Saturday, March 25.
