Thunder defeated by Colorado

Published on February 11, 2012 under ECHL (ECHL)
Stockton Thunder News Release


LOVELAND, Colo. - Steve Haddon and Joey Sides each scored a pair of goals to help the Colorado Eagles manufacture a wire to wire effort and defeat the Stockton Thunder (23-19-5, 51 points), 5-2, before an announced sold out crowd of 5,289 at the Budweiser Events Center on Friday night.

The Thunder, who saw a 5-0-1 streak come to an end, were outshot 41-29 and received their offensive contributions behind a second period goal by Max Campbell and a third period goal by Chris Doyle, who continued to stay hot with his 10th goal in the last 12 games.

"Colorado came out and capitalized on some mistakes we didn't need to make early on," said Thunder head coach Matt Thomas. "We put ourselves in a hole we couldn't dig out of. After it was 4-0 we played steady hockey but it was too little, too late. We need to be better from the get-go and have a better first period tomorrow."

Sides opened the scoring just 3:11 into the game when he finished Patrick Cey's centering pass while in an uncontested position between the hash marks for his second goal of the year.

Riley Nelson's one timer in the slot, coming off the rush from a tape-to-tape feed by Kevin Ulanski, put the Thunder behind 2-0 with 8:07 left in the second period.

Despite two attempts that missed off the post, including a flip by Jesse Fratkin that deflected off the crossbar, the Thunder fell into a deeper hole in the second period with Haddon's back to back goals helping secure Colorado's 4-0 lead.

His seventh goal of the season, at the 7:35 mark, put the Eagles up 3-0 when he buried a backhander from the base of the right circle. He followed up with his eighth goal of the season with 4:44 remaining in the period when he converted Adam Chorneyko's tape to tape pass at the right circle and snuck a low wrist shot past the blocker of Thunder goaltender Alex Stalock.

Following another missed opportunity by Matt Reber, whose wrist shot struck the post in the waning seconds, Campbell followed up to get the Thunder on the board with 19.2 seconds left on a wrist shot from the mid slot.

Sides extended the Colorado lead back to four goals with 9:16 left in the third period, finishing a rush at the front of the net from Steve Haddon's feed.

Doyle buried his 15th goal of the season to help the Thunder slash the deficit to 5-2 on his snap shot from the slot with 7:19 left in regulation.

Kyle Jones earned the win in net with 25 saves. Stalock, who was only the third goaltender in Thunder history to begin a season at 5-0-0, suffered his first ECHL loss with 36 saves.

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