ROCHESTER, N.Y. - Scoring an early goal for the third straight road game, the Grand Rapids Griffins defeated the Rochester Americans 3-1 Wednesday night at Blue Cross Arena.
Andy Miele opened the scoring for Grand Rapids with a tally 1:07 into the contest. Alexey Marchenko fired a shot on Rochester goaltender Nathan Lieuwen, with the rebound off his leg pad falling on the backhand of Miele before scoring his sixth goal of the season.
The Griffins doubled their lead at 3:43 when Andreas Athanasiou ripped a backhanded shot over Lieuwen’s shoulder for his third goal of the season with Mitch Callahan earning his fifth helper of the season.
The Americans (8-10-1-0) would split its goal deficit in half late in the first period when former Grand Rapids captain Matt Ellis scored his fifth goal of the season on the power play. Ellis screened Tom McCollum and used the screen to deflect a long shot from Mark Pysyk over McCollum’s left shoulder at 18:24.
Grand Rapids would continue to pepper Lieuwen with shots in the second period, but couldn’t get anything past him until Landon Ferraro put the Griffins ahead 3-1 on a shorthanded goal at 19:18. Ferraro blocked a shot from Chad Ruhwedel inside the Grand Rapids blue line and outskated Ruhwedel before firing a wrist shot over Lieuwen’s glove.
Grand Rapids (8-7-1-0) didn’t take its foot off the pedal in the third period, as they successfully killed three penalties and added 11 shots on goal for a game total of 37. McCollum turned away 27 of 28 shots to earn his fifth win of the season while Lieuwen made 34 saves in the loss.
Grand Rapids failed to score on six power play chances, while Rochester converted on the first of five power play chances they had in the contest.
After a day off tomorrow, the two teams will meet for a rematch Friday at 8 p.m. EST in Rochester.
Three Stars: 1. GR Athanasiou (game-winning goal); 2. GR Miele (goal); 3. RCH Ellis (goal).
