Corpus Christi, Texas – As the team has come together with newcomers used to playing with one-another, the rebuild continued in a positive direction for the Corpus Christi IceRays on the road where success hasn’t always been a given.
Finishing a stretch of six consecutive road games before closing out the season at home, the IceRays came out fast and put the pressure on the host New Mexico Ice Wolves.
Corpus Christi scored two first period goals and built a 3-0 lead.
But just a quickly as the IceRays started, New Mexico finished with a fury. Graham Harris scored off a rebound with 21 seconds left in regulation time to give the Ice Wolves a come-from-behind 5-4 victory Friday night at the Outpost Ice Arenas.
Stepan Kuznetsov scored in the first period and Luca Fasciano added a power play goal for the IceRays. Wolfgang Govedaris and Cody Kempf added goals for the IceRays.
Ryan Johnson, Bryce Johnson, Olivier Lamothe and Ryan Seelinger collected goals for New Mexico.
The IceRays are 3-2 in the recent road stretch.
Corpus Christi has won three of its last five games and is 5-8-0, 0SOL in its last 13 games, 6-13-0, 0SOL in its last 19 contests and 10-16-0, 1SOL in its last 27 games.
Overall, the IceRays are 19-33-2, 3SOL for 43 points, in eighth place in the NAHL South Division, seven points behind the Odessa Jackalopes for seventh, and 20 points behind the Warriors for sixth.
New Mexico is 31-18-6, 2SOL and in fourth place in the NAHL South with 70 points, two points in front of the Amarillo Wranglers.
“Unforced errors and soft plays,” IceRays Head Coach Sylvain Cloutier said. “We got away from the way we played in the first 24 minutes.”
The Ice Wolves outshot the IceRays 38-32.
Lorenzo Rossi made 33 saves in his IceRays debut in the nets.
“Rossi had a great game and we let him down,” Cloutier said.
Each team had a power play goal with the IceRays going 1-for-2 and the Ice Wolves 1-for-4 with the man-advantage.
Kuznetsov got the IceRays on the board 45 seconds into the contest with his 17th goal and 28th point of the season on assists from Troy Pelton, his fifth, and Wolfgang Govedaris.
Fasciano skated coast to coast out of his own zone on the power play for his third goals at 14:44 and the IceRays led 2-0 after one period of play.
Govedaris skated coast to coast for his fourth goal of the year at 4:14 of the second period.
But with the two teams on a 4-on-4 situation, John netted his 28th of the year to cut the IceRays lead to 3-1 after periods.
Bryce Johnson scored his 11th goal on the power play 8 seconds into the third period to pull within a goal.
Lamothe tied the game with his 14th of the season at 1:42.
Then the two teams went back and fourth trying to assert an edge.
Kempf scored his ninth goal from Polshakov and Valdez at 4:09 to give the IceRays a 4-3 lead.
A lead which would not last long. Seelinger netted his 16th goal at 5:25 to knot the game up at 4-4.
Harris closed out the comeback with his 16th of the year at 19:39.
The IceRays and Ice Wolves will conclude their two-game series Saturday night at 7:30 CDT.
You can watch the game on NAHL TV and listen on Brewster Street Radio.
For more information, visit goicerays.com.
