Highlights:
AT&T Center – The San Antonio Rampage know if they want to make a one final push at a playoff berth, they will need to start winning games. The Silver and Black took another step towards that goal with another home victory to begin the holiday weekend.
Ben Street made his return to the lineup by scoring two points and leading the Rampage to a 3-0 win over the Bakersfield Condors in front of 6,281 fans at the AT&T Center on Saturday night.
San Antonio got on the board early in the first period when Nick Drazenovic took the pass from Joey Hishon and fired it home from the slot at 5:35 to put the Rampage up by a goal. After outshooting Bakersfield 14-5 in the period, the Silver and Black would take the one-goal lead into the second period.
The Rampage added two more goals in the second period to seal their win. San Antonio took advantage of a power-play opportunity when Maxim Noreau let go a blast from above the right circle past Eetu Laurikainen at 4:57. Street made it 3-0 with another power-play tally just over a minute later as San Antonio took their three-goal advantage to the final period of play.
Bakersfield outshot San Antonio 21-8 in the third period, but Spencer Martin stood tall as the Rampage held on for the 3-0 win.
“We’ve had some good starts for awhile,” Rampage Head Coach Dean Chynoweth said. “The challenge has been to sustain that through the whole game. We did a good job of coming out with the energy and get the lead. We continued that into the second and the third (periods).”
San Antonio outshot Bakersfield 40-37 for the game, including 32-16 through the first two periods. The Rampage were a perfect 2-for-2 on the power play, while the Condors were 0-for-4 on the man advantage.
“We came out with fresh bodies in the lineup and played a solid game for 60 minutes,” said Martin, who earned the Second Star of the Game. “They (Bakersfield) came out strong there at the end, but we pushed back really well.”
Martin stopped all 37 shots he faced for his third AHL shutout, while Laurikainen made 37 saves on 40 San Antonio shots.
The Rampage are now 27-33-8-0 (62 points, 0.456%) on the season and will return to the ice tomorrow when they welcome the Texas Stars to the AT&T Center at 4 p.m.
