Iowa Wild Beat Rockford IceHogs 5-1

The Iowa Wild faced a tough test last night with the division-leading Rockford IceHogs coming to town. In their only meeting of the season, Rockford embarrassed the Wild with a 6-1 win. Tuesday was a very different game.

Rockford’s Matt Carey opened the scoring in the first, putting one past Wild goaltender John Curry. Rockford would close out the first period with a 1-0 lead, outshooting the Wild 15-9. Curry kept the Wild in it though, with an absolutely incredible highlight reel save where he dove across the front of the net and stopped a breakaway with the paddle of his stick. Watch that highlight in the video at the bottom of this post.

Iowa came out in the second and poured it on, despite being outshot 19-11. They’d score three goals, starting with Jonathon Blum‘s power play marker, his fourth of the year, assists to Mathew Dumba and Michael Keranen. Keranen’s two assists on the night put him within one point of Tyler Graovac, who leads the team with 20 points on the season, and gives him a team-leading 14 assists on the season.

About a minute and a half later, Zack Phillips would give Iowa the lead, putting one past Michael Leighton, assisted by Jordan Schroeder and Stephane Veilleux. The third of the period would come from Jason Gregoire, assists to Keranen and Zack Phillips.

Then things got a little weird as Johan Gustafsson led the team out of the locker room for the start of the third period. Coach Torchetti would later call the removal of Curry after he’d stopped 33 of 34 shots, “maintenance.” Later that night it was made clear by the Minnesota Wild that both Darcy Kuemper and Niklas Backstrom were sick and, as we now know, Curry was removed so he could be called up to the NHL for tonight’s game against the Boston Bruins.

So, enter Gustafsson.

The Wild would let Gustafsson get peppered with 25 shots in the third and he stopped every one of them. That, coupled with a goal from Mathew Dumba and an empty-netter from Zack Mitchell, counter-acted the Wild getting beat up 25-5 in shots in the third.

The three stars of the game went like this:
3. Matt Dumba
2. John Curry
1. Johan Gustafsson

I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a team have two goalies in the three stars of the game. That’s amazing and Zack Phillips agrees with me.

Watch some highlights from the game, including Curry’s incredible stick save.