Cedar Rapids RoughRiders fall in OT, but Ryan Walsh continues to produce offense

CEDAR RAPIDS — He’s a center, so he should be good at dishing off things.

Ryan Walsh did just that Sunday night when asked about his individual play. The Cedar Rapids RoughRiders rookie scored a goal in his team’s 3-2 overtime loss at ImOn Ice to the Green Bay Gamblers.

He leads his club in points, ranks third in the United States Hockey League in that department and has picked up at least one in 11 of his last 12 games. That’s about as consistent as consistent gets.

Yet he deflected a lot of the credit for those accomplishments to his teammates: his linemates Zaccharya Wisdom and Dylan Hryckowian, and Eric Pohlkamp, who leads USHL defensemen in goals and points, in particular.

“I would categorize (my play) in two separate areas: the defense and the offense,” Walsh said. “You know I’d love to say it’s all me, but I’ve got to give huge props to especially our power play. Pohlkamp’s gotten me a couple of assists. Wisdom, too. Although my stats might look good, I can only take a little bit of (credit) for that. I’ve got to give a lot of props to my teammates.”

Now THAT’S dishing it off expertly!

Good work down low by his line resulted in his Sunday goal, a wrister top right corner late in the first period that tied the game at 1. Hryckowian scored on the power play in the opening minute of the third period to give the Riders a 2-1 lead, with Walsh picking up an assist.

Green Bay tied it five minutes later, then won it on Eli Sebastian’s second goal of the game, this one coming 4-on-3 from just atop the left circle with 1:36 left in overtime.

“I think one of the areas I have to work on is being a little more physical,” Walsh said. “I know Coach has talked with me a lot about that. Just trying to find more consistency. I think if I could find a little more edge to my game, I could be a more well-rounded player.

“Always things to work on. You can never be satisfied. There’s always someone a little bit better than you.”

It was a rough weekend, no pun intended, for the RoughRiders (17-14-4-2), who lost Friday night at home to Chicago, 6-2, and Saturday night at Chicago, 5-3. As always, Coach Mark Carlson hit on the positives mostly, noting his club was ahead in the third period both Saturday and Sunday.

It just couldn’t quite close things out.

“If you look at the weekend, Friday there was too high of a percentage of the game that we weren’t ready for and didn’t play well. That was unacceptable,” he said. “I thought last night we played very well, and there were a ton of positives. I thought we played well enough to win, but credit Chicago. They found a way. I thought we played well enough to win tonight, but credit Green Bay. They found a way. Our guys battled. We were right there.”

Cedar Rapids sits in sixth place in the USHL’s Eastern Conference with 40 points, though it’s just two points out of fifth, four points out of fourth, six points out of third and seven out of second. It has a home-and-home series against Dubuque this week: Friday night at ImOn Ice and Saturday night at Dubuque.

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