Miners suffer hangover, lose 7-2 in Las Vegas.
CANADIAN PRESS (Las Vegas, NV)
The Sin City was not too kind to the visiting Sudbury Miners on this occasion. Valtteri Filippula and Justin Abdelkader each had three points, as the Las Vegas Aces cruised to a decisive 7-2 win on Thursday night.
The Miners, who have been hit with the injury bug as of late, lost another key player on this night. Center Ben Smith, who is a mainstay on one of the Miners penalty killing unit, left in the second period after taking a blow to the head and did not return. Rookie defenceman Julius Honka, who was making his Miners debut, also suffered a knee injury and is expected to be out for a month.
"Losing Smitty, obviously we had to scramble," coach Derek Sutton said. "We lost (Honka) as well. We were mix-and-matching all over the place, and we just couldn’t recover and find a way to be competitive."
Both Smith and Honka were listed as out indefinitely after the game.
Former Miners Ben Hutton and Brandon Sutter came back to haunt their former team and scored for the Aces, allowing them to open up a 3-0 first-period lead. From there, the Aces never looked back and cruised to the easy victory. Craig Anderson made 26 saves in the Aces goal on the night. With the win, the Aces now have a three-game winning streak going.
Radim Vrbata had a goal and an assist for the Miners. Aaron Ekblad had the other marker for the Miners and goalie Ben Bishop stopped 28 shots in the loss.
"The pucks went in for them and didn't go in for us," Bishop said. "The injuries definitely hurt, no pun intended, but a couple deflections here and there and it ends up in the back of their net and we have a different game."
MINERS NUGGETS
- The Miners have now lost 5 of their past 6 contests, and drop to 5-22-0 on the road.
- Goaltender Jake Allen will get the start on Saturday at home versus the Springfield Isotopes. Springfield currently sits in 2nd place in Canosa Conference with 75 points, one point behind conference leader Hamilton.
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