A big Muskegon first period too much for Cedar Rapids RoughRiders to overcome

CEDAR RAPIDS - The first period was brutal and too much for the Cedar Rapids RoughRiders to overcome.

Muskegon scored four first-period goals Wednesday night in a deciding Game 3 of this United States Hockey League first-round playoff series. Combine that with the Riders losing their best pair of defensemen, one to penalty and one to injury, and Cedar Rapids saw its season end via a 4-1 loss at Muskegon’s Trinity Health Arena.

The RoughRiders went 27-30-2-3 in the regular season, a club that took awhile to find the right mix of players. Once it did, through a variety of trades and acquisitions of players from Europe, this was a highly competitive team, as evidenced in this series.

Muskegon scored with just over a minute left to win Monday’s Game 1, 2-1, with Cedar Rapids rallying for a 4-3 win in Game 2, in which the RoughRiders got the winning goal with 59 seconds left.

“We lost our captain (Guerin Slezak) a couple of minutes in. Then not long after that, we lost our assistant captain, Max Vig, another big-time leader for us for the whole game. So that’s a lot,” said RoughRiders Coach Mark Carlson. “We had to try and kill a five-minute penalty. But they competed their tails off, we kept working, stuck with it. Really proud of how we played once we got behind. But they were able to score some goals there in the first, and we just didn’t come back.”

Muskegon outshot the RoughRiders in the first period, 21-6, having a lot of jump from the beginning. Teddy Spitznagel scored just 2:06 in for a 1-0 Lumberjacks lead, with David Deputy adding a goal about three minutes later.

Then came a five-minute major penalty and game misconduct on Vig for cross-checking a Muskegon player in a scrum in front of the crease during a play stoppage. David Klee and Xavier Veilleux converted on the continuious power play, and that was pretty much ballgame.

The RoughRiders did not allow a goal the rest of the game and pushed offensively throughout. Grant Young scored his second goal in the series late in the second period, but that was it.

“These group of kids that we have with us right now, they learned a ton of life lessons,” Carlson said. “We didn’t plan on player movement the way we had it, but we had a lot of player movement. I think our kids have learned a lot about what it means to be a team, what it takes to make a great teammate. Working together, battling adversity, working for your ice time, working for your power-play time, your penalty kill time, working for your five-on-five shifts. Working for your playing time in goal.

“There are just so many positives. I agree, I think they played good hockey for a number of months here at the end. I think the kids got the most out of themselves. So I’m extremely, extremely proud of these guys.

Carlson also pointed out that his team was without injured regulars Simon Seidl, Dylan Hunt and Noel Ohgren.

“Missing those three guys, it’s not an excuse,” Carlson said. “It’s just a reality.”

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