IceHogs Fall to Griffins in Hard-Fought Battle

ROCKFORD, Ill. - Lucas Carlsson and Dylan Sikura each extended their career-high point streaks, but the Rockford IceHogs dropped the mid-week matchup to the Grand Rapids Griffins 2-1 on Tuesday evening at the BMO Harris Bank Center.

After a scoreless first period, the two clubs combined for 24 penalty minutes in the opening minute of the second. The Griffins then broke the tie five minutes later when Kyle Wood zipped a pass to Dennis Cholowski, who fired a wrister that beat IceHogs netminder, Delia.

Rockford knotted things up at one with about six minutes remaining in the second period when Sikura found Carlsson, who skated down the left circle in the and ripped a shot over Pat Nagle’s blocker hand to pick up his fifth goal of the year. With the marker, Carlsson extended his point streak to seven games while Sikura stretched his to 11.

Sikura’s point streak, in which he’s notched 14 points (4g, 10a), is the longest point streak by any IceHog since Jeremy Morin tallied 20 points (11g, 9a) in a 13-game stretch from Feb. 1-March 4, 2014.

However, 8:44 into the third frame, Tyler Spezia gave Grand Rapids a 2-1 lead when he deked left then right to beat Delia and collect the game-winning goal.

Delia turned away 38 of 40 Griffins shots while Nagle stopped 27 of 28 in the win.

GAME NOTES

With his assist on Lucas Carlsson's goal, Dylan Sikura now possesses a career-high 11-game point streak in which he's notched 14 points (4g, 10a)...It's the longest point streak by an IceHog since Jeremy Morin's 13-game streak from Feb. 1-March 4, 2014 (11g-9a-20p).

Lucas Carlsson extended his own career-high point streak to seven games in which he's buried a goal and dished eight assists.

Collin Delia is now 4-2 in his last six appearances and has stopped 162 of 174 shots in that span for a save percentage of .931.