Chicago could not stop St. Louis\’ Alex Klaesner, who tallied a hat trick in a 10-1 win.
Klaesner\’s first goal came 6:14 into the second period. He then added goals at 10:04 into the third and at 13:36 into the third.
Chicago trailed by one after the first period, but St. Louis went into the second intermission with a 5-1 lead and never looked back.
St. Louis forced Chicago\’s netminders to work all game long, getting 55 shots and forcing 45 saves. Ryall Purdy made 24 stops and Sergey Markelov made 21. St. Louis excelled on the penalty kill, not giving up a single goal in four chances. St. Louis bested its season scoring average. St. Louis averages 5.9 goals per game.
St. Louis also got points from Frankie Cardinale, who also had one goal and one assist and Teddy Cardinale, who also racked up one goal and one assist. Others who scored for St. Louis included Ezekiel Estrada, who had two and Chris Brown, Eduard Rumyantsev, and Ryker Barber, who each put in one. More assists for St. Louis came via Tomas Loeffelman, CJ Nitchen, and Daniel Dunaway, who contributed one each and Ryan Reader, Alex Calvert, and Joe Nolan, who each chipped in two.
Chicago forced its penalty killing units to work especially hard during the game, picking up nine minors and one major for 43 minutes in penalty time. Chicago surpassed its season average of 33.0 penalty minutes per game. St. Louis\’ defense shut down Chicago\’s forwards for much of the game, and Chicago got off only six shots during the contest.
Chicago was led by Stefan Vlad, who scored the team\’s only goal. Vlad scored 1:48 into the second period to make the score 1-1. Ryne Wiederer provided the assist.
Zach Young rejected five shots on goal for St. Louis. St. Louis incurred 12 minutes in penalty time with six minors.
