Second-period push helps Moose to victory against Wild

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This article was published 31/12/2015 (3631 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A powerful second period sparked the Manitoba Moose to a 4-3 victory over the Iowa Wild today at the MTS Centre, extending the team’s home-ice points streak to six games (5-0-1).

The Moose scored four times in the middle frame, including the eventual game-winner off the left wing from shooter Scott Kosmachuk, sending the traditional New Year’s Eve crowd of 13,774 home happy.

The Moose pulled ahead in the slow-motion derby at the bottom of the AHL’s Central Division.

They now have 21 points on a record of 9-16-1-2.

Iowa is last at 19 points from 7-23-2-3, having played seven more games than the Moose.

The winner

Kosmachuk’s fifth goal of the season was his first game-winner.

The second-year winger has struggled to find a rhythm but moved his production to 5-7-12 with his two-point outing. He began the season with no goals in the first nine games.

“I think maybe it’s about the confidence level, maybe getting that back,” he said. “I’m trying to get it back and to get it back, you’ve got to shoot the puck and then things will happen.”

Kosmachuk, the Jets’ third-round pick of 2012 and a big scorer in his junior career, has taken 54 shots this season, less than two per game.

The rust

The Moose looked fairly terrible in the first period but there was some expectation that might happen, given it was their first game after an eight-day Christmas break.

The Wild, on the other hand, had already played twice since the break, and it showed as Dylan Labbe’s first-period goal sent the visitors ahead.

But in the second, Nic Petan set up power-play goals by Josh Morrissey and Chase DeLeo just 36 seconds apart as the Moose converted both ends of a five-on-three.

Austen Brassard, set up by Kosmachuk, had Manitoba’s other goal.

“The start had rust in it but we were able to get those power-play goals, especially that five-on-three, where if you don’t score, there’s usually a bit of a recoil that takes place where you chase the game,” said Moose coach Keith McCambridge.

Goalie Eric Comrie wound up with 41 saves, including a couple of alert stops in the third to preserve the victory.

The improvement

The Moose have been much more competitive of late, now 4-2-0-1 in the last seven.

Part of that has been signs of life from the power play, now five of the last 16 over four games.

Coming into Thursday’s game, it was ranked 28th in the AHL at just 11.4 per cent.

“I think we’re just getting together and communicating a lot,” Petan said. “At the beginning, I don’t think we were talking enough. Now it’s just automatic we’re talking to each other out there.

“Obviously five-on-threes help. You have time and space to settle things out. Things are going in.”

The rematch

The teams meet again Friday at the MTS Centre at 7 p.m. and the Moose will be looking for a sharper effort, having now played a game since the long layoff.

If they are looking up in the standings, the eight-game homestand that starts with the Iowa doubleheader will be important.

“All of our games are huge where we sit in the standings,” McCambridge said. “They’re not far off where we are so we don’t take them as an easy night.

“And we have some tough opponents coming in after this, Grand Rapids, Toronto, Lake Erie. But right now with this group, it’s focusing on the next game in front of us and I thought we did a good job coming back refreshed from that break and getting the two points here.”

tim.campbell@freepress.mb.ca