JANUARY 12, 2017 - Wednesday night, the Blades faced off against the Forest Lake Lakers. This was the Blades' fifth game in six days, including the USPHL Showcase in Boston. The Blades have gotten the best of the Lakers in three out of four meetings so far this season. The Midwest division match up was the Lakers first game since the USPHL Midwest Showcase in Chicago prior to the holiday break.
After being called for a roughing penalty just twelve seconds into the game, the Blades were tested early. When called upon, Tim Grounds answered the bell in net, turning away multiple quality Laker chances. The first half of the period was back and forth until Soren Colstrup tallied the first goal of the game when he beat Lakers goalie Josh Greune. The penalty killing duo of Kyle Wadden and Oskari Valli capitalized on a broken play at the blue line before heading on a two on one odd man rush. Valli beat Greune over the shoulder to give the Blades a 2-0 lead. Before the Forest Lake power play expired, the Lakers cut the deficit in half on a backdoor play to make the score 2-1 in favor of the Blades.
Soren Colstrup wasted no time to regain the Blades two goal lead when, at the 18:55 mark of the period, he scored his 25th goal of the season on a wrist shot five-hole. Just over three minutes later, the Lakers answered right back to bring them within one with a shot from the point. With the score at 3-2 still in favor of the Blades, Colton Sprenger carved around the Lakers defense before unleashing a picture-perfect backhand shot that rang off the crossbar and into the back of the net. Seemingly, before the Lakers could recover from the Sprenger goal, Valli was the recipient of a beautiful pass from Wadden. Valli would connect for a one-timer that gave the Blades a 5-2 lead. Almost seven minutes later, the Lakers responded yet again. With an extra attacker from a delayed penalty, Jack Scott unleashed a slapshot from the blue line that beat Grounds top shelf. Thirty-one seconds after the Lakers brought themselves within two goals, Sprenger scored again, this time beating Greune on the far side. The Blades would head into the second intermission up by a score of 6-3.
The third period brought some animosity out of both teams with six penalties being called with half of them off-setting each other. While the pace ramped up, neither team backed down defensively. With the Lakers unable to counter, the Blades would eventually win by the score of 6-3. This gives the Blades a 4-1-0 record against Forest Lake this season and improve their record to 19-7-2 on the season.
The Blades will ride their seven-game winning streak into their eighth game in ten days on Friday night against the Blaine Energy.
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