MUSKEGON – It’s no longer October, and the Muskegon Lumberjacks are no longer mired in last place.
It just seemed a little bit like that at Mercy Health Arena on Friday night.
If you look back at the Lumberjacks’ results this season, you will notice that they went on the road and lost to the Madison Capitols 6-3 on Oct. 22 and 6-4 on Oct. 23. Then also lost their next game to Dububue, which brought their losing streak to four straight games.
[1]Of course the Jacks have won a ton of games since then and jumped from last place to first for a moment, and are currently in second place.
But their 7-3 loss to Madison in front of a big home crowd on Friday brought their current losing streak to three straight games, the most they have lost in a row since those dark days in October.
The Jacks fell to 22-11-6 on the season and remain in second place in the USHL’s Eastern Conference.
Muskegon and Madison will have a rematch at Mercy Health Arena on Saturday at 7:10 p.m.
Things seemed pretty normal for the Lumberjacks in the first period.
They took a 1-0 lead on a Nick Peluso goal at 9:07 of the first. Madison tied things up with a goal by Reid Pabich at the 13:02 mark, then the Jacks pulled ahead again with a tally by Gavin McCarthy at 14:57.
Madison answered less than two minutes later when Luke Mittelstadt found the net, and the score was knotted 2-2 after one period.
The Jacks were hurt late in the period when Tyler Hotson was called for a five-minute major penalty and a game misconduct, but Muskegon suffered minimal damage, allowing only Middlestadt’s goal during the long penalty kill.
But Madison dominated the rest of the way, leaving a big crowd of Muskegon fans who have become used to winning stunned in their seats.
[2]The Capitols got second period goals from Barrett Brooks, Trey Ausmus and Kyle Kukkonen take a 5-2 lead into the third. Muskegon goalie Aleksander Kuleshov was pulled from the game after Kukkonen’s goal, and was replaced by newcomer Chase Clark, who was playing his first game for the Jacks.
“I thought the first period we played extremely well,” said Lumberjacks Coach Mike Hamilton. “I thought we carried the play, and then we had that lapse in the second period that I was not happy with.
“If anything we should have had some momentum (in the second period). We had a huge penalty kill for five minutes, then we killed another two minute penalty right after that, and we should have had them. Instead we turned around and gave up three goals.”
Noah Ellis scored for Muskegon at 3:59 of the third period, making the score 5-2, but Madison found the net twice more with goals by Matt McGroarty and Mittelstadt to seal up the win.
Madison goalie Simon Latkoczy played well, stopping 29 of 32 shots.
Muskegon was called for seven penalties for 25 minutes in the penalty box, while Madison was only whistled twice for four minutes. The Jacks gave up two goals on six Madison power plays and were scoreless on their own two power plays.
[3]Hamilton said he was not pleased with the overall goaltender play and indicated that Clark would probably get the start on Saturday night.
Kuleshov stopped 12 of the 17 shots he faced while Clark stopped 11 of 13.
“I thought their goalie was real good, and we have let our goalies off the hook for a long time,” the coach said. “We need to stop more pucks.”