Coming off a win in New Mexico, the IceRays returned home on Friday night to face off against El Paso. The IceRays tried to keep as much of the same as they could with Stefan Carney getting the start and the top two lines remaining the same.
In the first period, the IceRays were the first to strike on the scoreboard with Jack Wandmacher scoring his first in his career. He scored it from a very sharp angle getting past the right pad of Lassi Lehti, El Paso’s goaltender.
Corpus Christi took that 1-0 lead into the first intermission. The IceRays added on to the lead thanks to Albin Persson burying a feed from Michael Casey. Persson has now scored six points over the last four Friday games. El Paso struck back to get the IceRays lead back to one heading into the second intermission.
Very quickly into the third period, the Rhinos evened it at two aside. The scored stayed that way for most of the period until El Paso had a goal deflect in very awkwardly past Stefan Carney. The IceRays pulled their goaltender while on the power play with three minutes and change in the period. El Paso had countless chances to put it into the empty net and eventually did.
El Paso took game one of the two game set. The IceRays look to bounce back tonight against El Paso in front of what expects to be the biggest crowd this season for Stars and Stripes Night presented by Whataburger. Puck drop is scheduled for 7:05 pm tonight.
