Riders rally past Chicago, earn home-ice advantage

CEDAR RAPIDS - They were in third place for less than 24 hours.

The Cedar Rapids RoughRiders completed their United States Hockey League regular season Saturday night the way they began it way back in October. But this victory, 4-3 over Chicago, meant so much more.

From a bottom-line standpoint, it gave the Riders second place in the Eastern Conference and home-ice advantage in the first round of the playoffs. From a mental standpoint, well, it was just plain enormous.

'You go through different periods in the season, and things happen,” said Riders Coach Mark Carlson, in a chaotic Riders locker room. 'We felt like we've been playing pretty good hockey over the last couple of weeks. We were just making silly mistakes, and we made a couple of silly ones again tonight ,,. But the resolve and the determination and the mental toughness these guys showed was tremendous.”

The RoughRiders finished the regular season 39-21-0 for 78 standings points. Dubuque briefly overtook them for second place in the division Friday night but C.R.'s win combined with a Dubuque loss at Waterloo flipped the teams back.

'I think tonight we came together as a band of brothers,” said Riders co-captain Andrew Oglevie. 'We all wanted to accomplish the game thing, to win 20 home games this season. The guys just stuck with it.”

Oglevie had a pair of goals, including the winner midway through the third period. He took a pass from linemate Erik Foley in the slot and fired a wrister past Chicago goalie Trevor Gorsuch stick side.

Gorsuch relieved starter Lassi Yrjola 10:22 into the second period, after Tanner Laczynski scored to give the Steel a 3-1 lead. Yrjola was not injured, and it was obviously planned to have the two netminders split their team's final game.

It was a game that seemed to turn three minutes after Gorsuch entered, when Hugh McGing of the Riders was awarded a penalty shot after being taken down on a breakaway. He converted to make it 3-2, then, with momentum squarely in C.R.'s corner, Ross Colton scored on a rebound four minutes after that to tie it.

Adam Gaudette had the original backhand shot, with Gorsuch making a kick save. The puck appeared then to careen off an oncharging Colton's skate, with a video review showing he had not intentionally kicked it in.

'Yeah, I think it got the guys going a little bit,” McGing said of his penalty shot. 'We were all working so hard but couldn't get the bounces. I feel like scoring that goal helped us a lot. Everybody started scoring, we started playing faster.”

'That was huge for us,” Carlson said. 'Obviously the goal was awesome. But it was the hustle and determination that kid played with. It was great leadership from one of our youngest guys ... To have the mental toughness to score that goal was awesome.”

The Riders posted a whopping 50 shots on goal, 22 in the second period and 17 in the third. They outshot their opponent by a 39-12 edge those final two periods.

Now it's the playoffs. Dubuque won the regular-season series between the teams in convincing fashion, taking six of eight games.

Game 1 is Tuesday night at Dubuque, with Games 2 and 3 back in Cedar Rapids Friday and Saturday, April 17 and 18.

Game 4 would be in Dubuque, a deciding Game 5 in Cedar Rapids.

'I couldn't be more excited,” Oglevie said. 'We're going to (freaking) take it to them. It's going to be a great series. I hope they know what's coming.”

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