A chippy game, a near miraculous comeback, but a loss for Cedar Rapids RoughRiders

CEDAR RAPIDS — Where to start with this one? Where to start?

Let’s begin with the final score.

The United States National Team Development Program’s U18 club held on by the laces of their skates to beat the Cedar Rapids RoughRiders, 7-6, Sunday night in a USHL encounter at ImOn Ice that began an hour and 20 minutes late because a pane of glass behind one of the nets was exploded by a shot during warmups, had to be cleaned up and replaced.

Team USA, The Program, whatever you want to call them, scored two goals seconds apart twice in the game and rolled to leads of 5-1 in the second and 7-2 midway through the third.

But a lopsided game on the scoreboard known for its extreme chippiness, primarily thanks to a slew of penalties of the head-contact, cross-checking, boarding, roughing, charging variety on the U18s, stayed chippy but suddenly not so lopsided. In a span of just under six minutes, the RoughRiders (25-27-2-1, 53 standings points) got power-play goals from Cooper Flinton and defenseman Eric Pohlkamp (his second of the night), an even-strength goal by Zaccharaya Wisdom and a 6-on-5 goal by Wisdom with goaltender Bruno Bruveris off for an extra attacker to make it a 7-6 game with 48 seconds left.

Cedar Rapids got Bruveris off again, the puck deep in the U18s zone and had two or three quality chances in the waning seconds to somehow tie this weird affair but couldn’t quite get it done. Team USA has a two-point lead on the Riders for sixth place and the final available playoff spot in the USHL’s Eastern Conference.

Cedar Rapids has seven regular-season games remaining, Team USA eight.

“It just shows how close our team is, our brotherhood,” Wisdom said, when asked his thought on this “interesting” game. “We’ll put our life on the line for each other. That showed out there tonight. No one out there quit. We finished the game hard.”

It was overall a good weekend for the Riders, considering they beat Waterloo, 4-1, Friday night and disposed of Des Moines on Saturday night. The Sunday loss ended a four-game win streak.

“I think we’ve played a lot of good hockey recently. We’ve played a lot of hockey recently,” said RoughRiders Coach Mark Carlson. “I think it was nine games in 17 nights, maybe. That’s more than a National Hockey League team would play. But our guys have come in here and worked and did a great job battling back tonight.

“They’ve had a ton of character all year. They always battle.”’

Now back to the chippy aspect of this game. There were 250 penalty minutes handed out, with Cedar Rapids being granted 11 power plays, with the Riders taking advantage of just two of them.

There were 13 combined 10-minute misconducts handed out, two game misconducts, a five-minute major given to C.R.’s Conor Lovett for grabbing a Program player’s face mask. Meanwhile, Lovett’s helmet already had been taken off his head by an opponent.

Program players wear full face masks while most players on other teams in the league wear the clear half-mask. Combine that with Program players being instructed by coaches not to engage in fights, and you tend to get guys who aren’t afraid to take that extra shove, that extra slash or lay a hard hit because they know there will be no physical retribution from the other team.

Carlson wouldn’t bite, when asked why he thought the game went off the rails, simply saying there seemed to be a lot of scrums after the whistle.

“Yeah, I think they have a little more confidence when it comes to that type of stuff,” said Wisdom. “They give you jabs and stuff like that. At the end of the day, they’re not allowed to fight or else it’s a suspension for them. So I think they have a little more confidence when it comes to the dirty stuff.”

The Program’s Rutger McGroarty was one of those players to be assessed a 10-minute misconduct, as well as a double-minor for roughing at the 13:49 mark of the third period, according to the official gamesheet, yet somehow made his way back into the game down the stretch.

“That was the craziest game I’ve ever been a part of through my whole career,” Pohlkamp said. “Refs were calling a lot of penalties. Then there were some scrums, and it would get more testy and more testy and more testy.”

The RoughRiders host Youngstown and Muskegon this coming week.

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