Mudbugs Hockey Blog

Kenny Carroll stopped 45 of 47 shots as the injury plagued Mudbugs swept the Mississippi RiverKings on back to back nights. Shawn Limpright scored  just 1:22 into overtime, sealing the 3-2 victory for the Bossier Shreveport Mudbugs, who now are in the midst of winning their last 4 out of 5 games, including a current 3 game winning streak.

The Mudbugs who already had enough players on IR to fill a Mash unit, began the game shorthanded, and finished with even less. There was almost as many players on the ice as there were on the bench. Hard times and adversity were all over this team tonight, and somehow they came out in the end smelling like a rose. They are officially branded a Mudbugs Team.

The old saying goes “no guts, no glory”, but I think in this case it’s more like “all guts, all glory”.  There was only one choice for these soldiers, and that was to dig down deeper than any of them may ever have in their careers giving all they have to give, and then some.

I think it was the “then some” where they may have found what was needed to reach their glory.  It can be said about a win, that it doesn’t matter how its done, but in this case, it is about how it was done.

Games like tonight can define a team, while going a long way in not only bringing a team together, but also earning the trust and respect of your teammates as well. Let’s put these two victory’s into perspective. The Mudbugs were outshot 88-48 in the home and home series and won both of them.  The combo of John DeCaro and Kenny Carroll combined for 85 saves in the two victories. That is some superior goaltending going on there.

The Mississippi Riverkings opened the scoring at 12:25 of the opening period on a goal by Kevin Jarman. But the Mudbugs came right back to tie the score less than 2 minutes later when veteran Joe Blaznek scored his 3rd of the season. The goal was unassisted.

The opening frame concluded with the score tied at one apiece with Mississippi holding a 16-9 shot advantage. There was no scoring in the second frame. Mississippi outshot Bossier Shreveport 19-4 in that period and 37-11 through the first 40 minutes.

The Mudbugs took the lead 2-1 off the stick of defensemen David Pszenyczny with his 1st goal of the season helped out by Mark Johnson and Chris St Croix at 3:26 of the third frame.

But the RiverKings fought their way back to the tie the game 2-2 at 8:48 of the period on a goal by Darrell Stoddard. There would be no more scoring for the remainder of regulation time, so let’s collect our one-point and move on to overtime.

Then just 1:22 into the overtime period, Shawn Limpright fired the game winner past RiverKing netminder Ray Jean capping of very gutsy 3-2 victory. Simon Mangos and Joe Blaznek had the assists. Their wounds won’t hurt as much on their way back home after a win like this.

Hopefully, the Mudbugs will be able to heal some of the walking wounded before Wednesday as they will head south to Hidalgo, Texas to face off against the Rio Grande Valley Killer Bees. (Posted updated – 11/24/09)

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