Tolvanen’s two lifts Musketeers to victory

Eeli Tolvanen‘s second of the night, scored with 68 seconds to play snapped a 3-3 deadlock and lifted the host Sioux City Musketeers to a 4-3 United States Hockey League win against the Des Moines Buccaneers at the Tyson Events Center on Friday (Oct. 28).

Tolvanen, 17, from Finland will likely be a top 10 pick in the 2017 NHL Entry Draft in Chicago in June. For now, the left winger is providing excitement in Sioux City. His goals were his sixth and seventh of the young season and this was the most dramatic finish on a night that saw five of eight games decided by a single goal, yet not one of them going to overtime.

In other USHL action, the Youngstown Phantoms edged Team USA 3-2 at the Covelli Center in Youngstown; the Waterloo BlackHawks edged the visiting Dubuque Fighting Saints 3-2 at Young Arena, Sioux Falls Stampede captured a 2-1 road win at L.C. Walker Arena against the host Muskegon Lumberjacks; Bloomington Thunder downed the Omaha Lancers 3-2 at U.S. Cellular Coliseum in Bloomington; the Chicago Steel picked up its 10th straight season opening win at the Fox Valley Ice Arena with a 3-0 shutout against the visiting Cedar Rapids Roughriders; Tri City Storm collected a 5-3 win at Scheels Arena against host Fargo Force and the Green Bay Gamblers downed the Lincoln Stars 4-1 at the Resch Center in Green Bay.

Buccaneers 3 at Musketeers 4

Along with Tolvanen,the host Musketeers got a first period goal from CJ Dodero, 18, from Colorado and a third period tally from Brian Rigali, 19, from Green Oaks, IL.

The Musketeers led 2-0 after a period before Collin Rutherford, 19, from New York struck back with the only goal of the second for the visitors and Isaac Johnson, 17, from Andover, MN completed the comeback 3:50 into the third.

Rigali’s goal put the Bucs in front again with 8:06 to play but Solag Bakich, 18, from Texas responded for the visitors 35 seconds later, setting the stage for Tolvanen’s game winner.

Matiss Kivlenieks, 20, from Latvia, picked up the win in goal for the Musketeers with a 30-save game while Jan Ruzicka, 19, from Czech Republic stopped 29 in goal for the Bucs.

Team USA 2 at Phantoms 3

All of the scoring in this one was over by the 12:47 mark of the second period as Nicolas Werbik, 19, from Czech Republic scored the third goal of the period for the Phantoms with earlier markers coming from Evan Wisocky, 18, from New Jersey and Alex Esposito, 20, from Connecticut.

Werbik also gave his team its first and only lead as Tyler Inamoto, 17, from Barrington, IL fired the lone goal of the first period and Sean Dhooghe, 17, from Aurora, IL gave Team USA a 2-1 lead early in the second period.

Ivan Kulbakov, 20, from Belarus stopped 20 shots to pick up the win in goal for the Phantoms and Dylan St. Cyr, 17, from Northville, MI made 29 saves in goal for Team USA.

Fighting Saints 2 at Blackhawks 3

RJ Murphy, 18, from Massachusetts, scored with 7:38 to play to get the visiting Fighting Saints within one at 3-2 but despite firing 14 shots in the frame, that was the only one to get get by the Blackhawks’ goaltender, as both Severi Isokangas, 18, from Finland (1:42 8/9) and Robbie Beydoun, 20, from Plymouth, MI (48:18 20/21) shared the win in goal for the Waterloo side.

The host Blackhawks grabbed a 2-1 first period lead goals by Jake Ryczek, 18, from Massachusetts and Garrett Klee, 18, from Colorado sandwiched the Dubuque goal scored by David Brumm, 19, from Maple Grove, MN.

After a scoreless middle period, Bailey Conger, 19, from Idaho opened up a two-goal margin for the Hawks near the halfway mark of the final period, Murphy’s goal coming about three minutes later.

Jaxon Castor, 19, from Arizona handled the goaltending chores for the Fighting Saints, stopping 22 shots.

Stampede 2 at Lumberjacks 1

Mikhail Berdin couldn’t have played a bigger role in this one as the 18-year-old Russian goaltender had his team in front 1-0 heading to the final period despite being outhshot 40-14.

Logan Drevitch, 18, from Massachusetts finally found a way past the keeper early in the final period, tying the game at 1-1, but that was the only shot to get by Berdin despite another 20-8 edge in shots for the home team down the stretch.

William Garin, 19, from Mound, MN had the first period goal for the Stampede and Lean Bergmann, 18, from Germany sank the game winner with 6:29 to play.

Keith Petruzzelli, 17, from Massachusetts turned in a 20 save effort for the Lumberjacks.

Lancers 2 at Thunder 3

Rookie Marko Reifenberger, 17, from Hastings, MN picked a perfect time to score his first junior goal, lifting the host Thunder in front to stay 3-2 with 4:40 to play against the Lancers.

Reifenberger’s goal put the home team in front for a third and final time as the visiting Lancers rallied to tie the score the previous two times but couldn’t net the equalizer a third time.

Vladislav Dzhioshvili, 18, from Russia, scored the only goal of the first period for the Thunder and the other goal came from August von Ungern-Sternberg, 19, from Idaho early in the third period.

Mitch Perrault, 20, from Findlay, OH and Brian Matthews, 18, from Massachusetts responded with the Omaha goals.

Gabriel Mollot-Hill, 19, from Ontario stopped 31 shots to pick up the win in goal for the Thunder while Jacob Acton, 18, from California handled 21 for the Lancers.

Roughriders 0 at Steel 3

Chicago remained undefeated on the season thanks to a 24-save shutout from Tommy Nappier, 18, from St. Louis, MO and one goal in each period, scored by Walker Duehr, 19, from Sioux Falls, SD; Jake Jaremko, 20, from Nowthen, MN and Johnny Walker, 20, from Arizona with his eighth of the season.

Harrison Feeney, 18, from Pennsylvania stopped 35 shots in the Roughriders goal.

Storm 5 at Force 3

Paul Washe, 18, from Clarkston, MI  opened the scoring just 38 seconds in and added another at the 2:28 mark. That send the Storm on its way as it  built its lead to 4-0 by the 10:35 mark on its way to a 4-1 cushion after a period.

Fargo pulled two more back in the second period, but Philip Alftberg, 19, from Sweden put this one away for the Storm with his goal 4:49 from the final buzzer. Other Storm goals came from Wyatt Bongiovanni, 17, from Birmingham, MI and Alex Limoges, 19, from Virginia.

Jack Adams, 19, from Massachusetts scored twice for the Force and Carson Musser, 19, from Grand Rapids, MI added the other.

Dayton Rasmussen, 18, from Eden Prairie, MN  stopped 32 of 35 shots to pick up the win in goal for the Storm and the Force sent both Ryan Bischell, 17, from Medina, MN (52:14 18/20) and Matthew Murray, 18, from Alberta (5:09 2/5) to the crease.

Stars 1 at Gamblers 4

The Stars got on the board first in this one, Casey Dornbach, 19, from Edina, MN hitting the mesh for the only goal of the night for his team 88 seconds into the second period.

Chris Grando, 18, from New York, scored twice for the host side before the end of the second period and third period markers from Jared Spooner, 20, from Bismarck, ND and Jason Dhooghe, 19, from Aurora, IL clinched the win for the Gamblers.

Maksim Zhukov, 17, from Russia made 28 saves to pick up the win in goal for the Gamblers, and Cayden Primeau, 17, from New Jersey handled 32 shots in goal for the Stars.

Saturday games

On Saturday (Oct. 29), the USHL will have another slate of games including: the Stampede continuing its weekend set at Muskegon, the Lancers facing off with the Thunder again in Bloomington, Waterloo making the return trip to Dubuque on a home and home weekend, the Storm facing the Force once again, the Stars remain in Green Bay to play the Gamblers and the Roughriders move on to Sioux City to play the Musketeers.