Evansville, In.: Despite the tough 6-1 defeat to the Birmingham Bulls, it was an off-ice victory as the Thunderbolts welcomed 5,923 fans to Wednesday night’s game and postgame fireworks show at Ford Center. The Thunderbolts’ next home game at Ford Center will be on Friday, January 2nd against the Quad City Storm at 7:00pm CT.
The Thunderbolts encountered some of the worst luck possible in the span of a single game, starting in the first period as the Thunderbolts heavily outshot the Bulls 21-5 and had the vast majority of scoring chances, yet the Bulls took a 2-0 lead off a Drake Glover power play goal at 8:10 and a CJ Walker goal at 11:20 on literally the only two chances the Bulls had in the period, as it became clear that Hayden Stewart was going to be a hard problem to solve in goal for Birmingham. In the second period, Evansville outshot the Bulls 10-9 yet Birmingham once again scored twice as Walker scored on a 5-on-3 at the 1:24 mark and Macgregor Sinclair made it 4-0 at 7:59. The Thunderbolts got life at 7:37 of the third period as Connor Tait scored off a face-off to break the Bulls’ shutout, assisted by Eelis Laaksonen. Unfortunately, the Bulls put the game away later as Sinclair scored again at 14:12 and Matt Wood added a power play goal with 2:13 remaining to make it a 6-1 game.
Tait scored Evansville’s goal while Kristian Stead stopped 19 of 25 shots on goal, which should be heavily emphasized that virtually all of the goals against Stead were on very difficult Grade-A opportunities. The Thunderbolts and Bulls meet again on Friday, January 23rd at Ford Center, with Evansville leading the season series 2-1.
