On Pink in the Rink Night, the Rochester Grizzlies were victorious in more than one way. The Grizzlies came away with a big victory over division rival Alexandria Blizzard to keep a strong hold on first place in the West Division. They were powered by a four-goal first period en route to the win. The team also raised money to be donated to cancer research at Mayo Clinic.
The scoring started early with Owen Van Tassel finishing off an odd-man rush at 2:09 to make it 1-0. That marked Van Tassel’s 20th goal of the season. Matt Haun made it 2-0 with his 12th goal overall, and sixth power play goal, at 9:23 of the first period. Luke Sawicky added to the lead with a shorthanded goal just about four minutes later. Then Josh Wolf added one for good measure to make it 4-0 with 49 seconds left in the period.
Rochester wouldn’t find the back of the net in the second period till the later stages. Tate Cothern made some great saves prior to that, including two big ones on the penalty kill. Cael Knutson jumped on a rebound at 16:41 of the period and beat new Alexandria goalie Jozef Zilinec. Lennard Habeck made it 6-0 with a power move to the net and stuffed it past Zilinec for his 12th of the season.
Van Tassel added his second goal of the game at 5:02 of the third period to extend the lead to 7-0. Leo Milan added a power play goal late in the third to keep the rout going for the home team.
Tate Cothern picked up his fifth shutout of the season, stopping all 35 shots he saw. Rochester and Alexandria are back at it Saturday at 7:10pm in Alexandria.