ROCHESTER, Minn. – All good things must come to an end at some point. The Rochester Grizzlies had a nine-game win streak going into Saturday’s game but ultimately fell to the Peoria Mustangs 2-1 on home ice.
Much like Friday night, the Grizzlies opened the scoring. Peyton Hart flipped a shot up and over Mustangs goalie Cole Walter for his fifth goal of the season. Dylan Schneider and Garrett Smith assisted on Hart’s goal. Rochester peppered Walter with 15 shots on net in the first period compared to just five for the Mustangs.
The second period was where the game changed for the Grizzlies. Peoria stormed back for two goals in the period. Jared Wisely finished off a nice pass from Quinn Murphy and beat Zach Wiese to the glove side, tying the game at 1-1 at 11:39 of the second. The game would stay tied for about six minutes before the Mustangs took the lead on a fortunate bounce. George Giese fired a shot that missed the net and banked off the boards and went off Wiese and into the net, making it 2-1 Mustangs.
Rochester was unable to solve Walter in the second and third period despite putting a combined 22 shots on net in those two periods. The power play was the downfall for Rochester this weekend, going a combined 0/11 including 0/5 on Saturday evening. The Grizzlies had three power play chances in the second period and one with less than four minutes to go in the third, but could not find the back of the net.
The Grizzlies are still on top of the Central Division, sitting at 9-1-0-0 (18 points). They’re on the road next weekend, with games next Friday and Saturday at Oregon for the first time this season. Rochester is back on home ice Dec. 4 and 5 against the Wausau RiverWolves.