Cedar Rapids RoughRiders suffer crushing 5-2 defeat against Dubuque

CEDAR RAPIDS — They've been Team Resiliency all season, and the Cedar Rapids RoughRiders are going to have to be after this one.

You can't get a more brutal loss than Saturday night's 5-2 heartbreaker to Dubuque in the regular-season finale at the Cedar Rapids Ice Arena.

Let that sink in for a minute. This three-goal defeat was indeed a heartbreaker.

Dallas Gerads scored a four-on-four goal with 1:26 left to break a 2-2 tie. Shane Kavanagh and Mitchell Smith then added emtpy netters as Dubuque swept the weekend series.

'We've just got to forget about what happened,' said RoughRiders defenseman Jack Ahcan, whose team was waxed Friday night at Dubuque, 10-2.

The RoughRiders seemingly had a glorious opportunity to win this tensely-played affair when Dubuque's Brett Boeing was given a five-minute charging penalty for bowling over Riders goaltender Ben Blacker on a power move with 3:34 left. Blacker remained down face first in his own net for a lengthy period of time, as fans booed and Boeing was eventually escorted from the ice with a game ejection.

'I don't know what happened,' said Blacker, who was absolutely stellar in keeping his outplayed team in position for a win. 'I was just looking at the puck. Something hit my head really hard. Just got a little rattled, but I'm good now.'

'I probably would have done something worse than what (teammate Ben) Foley did to him,' said Ahcan. 'That was uncalled for ... He didn't make any attempt to get out of the way. That was pretty cheap.'

Foley got a two-minute roughing penalty for sticking up for his injured goalie. Boeing's major penalty theoretically put Cedar Rapids on the power play the remainder of regulation and another 1:26 in overtime, if needed.

Cedar Rapids could have scored as many power-play goals as desired, too, since it was a major. But C.R.'s Matt Filipe was called for holding in the Dubuque zone 1:26 later to negate two minutes of the Riders power play. Instead the teams played four-on-four for two minutes.

Dubuque cycled with the puck in the RoughRiders zone, with Fighting Saints defenseman Keegan Ford wheeling around the net and whipping a pass to an open Gerads in the goal mouth. He deked Blacker down and deposited the puck past him for the winner.

'The fans are buzzing, we're thinking it's our game,' Ahcan said. 'I didn't see what happened in the corner (with Filipe). But whatever it was, happened. Like I said, we've got to forget about it.'

Fourth-line forward Pavel Tkachkov put Cedar Rapids on top first, with a beautiful goal at 10:46 of the second period. Tkachkov intercepted a Dubuque pass in the Fighting Saints zone, skated in, deked Dubuque goalie Hunter Miska down and out and slipped the puck into the empty net for just his second goal of the season.

Dubuque tied things shortly after Tkachkov's goal. Ross Colton's 33rd goal of the season put the RoughRiders back up early in the second period, but that was countered again by a Willie Knierim goal off a deflection.

Bottom line is the RoughRiders (38-15-4, 81 standings points) failed in two weekend attempts to clinch the USHL's Anderson Cup for most standings points, with things now being entirely too interesting, as far as Cedar Rapids is concerned. The Riders have road games next week to conclude the regular season at Waterloo and Sioux City.

Green Bay is second overall and in the Eastern Conference with 77 points, with Dubuque and Bloomington third with 76 each. Dubuque plays Sunday at Green Bay, with all three teams then having two remaining games each next weekend.

'They found a way to get one (late),' said Riders Coach Mark Carlson. 'I'm not a how-difficult-is-this type of guy, you know what I mean. We put our best foot forward, but they found a way to get the third goal there.'

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