Despite holding a pair of different leads, and being tied up late, the Lloydminster Bobcats were unable to shake their road-woes Saturday night in Grand Prairie.
The Bobcats put forth a gritty road effort, however, they wound up exiting Revolution Place with a 5-3 loss.
Having not scored a goal on the road in over 227 minutes, Zach Kaiser quickly put an end to that streak on Saturday.
The Orangeville, Ontario produced deflected home a Tyler Lowe point-shot just 25 seconds into the game to put Lloydminster up 1-0.
The goal was just the beginning of an early flood gate opening.
Just 1:31 after Kaiser opened the scoring, the Storm evened the score with a goal from Cruz Cote. But, just 58 seconds later, the Bobcats regained the lead on a Tucker Scantlebury wrist shot.
Again though, it was short-lived. Sean Thomson buried an unassisted marker 24 seconds later, as the two teams exploded for four goals in the first 3:18 of the contest.
In the middle frame, the Storm jumped out to their first lead of the night. With 4:55 to go in the period, Zach Okabe found the back of the net, but in the pattern of the game, Grand Prairie’s lead did not last very long either.
On a 4-on-3 power-play, Daniel Hilsendager fired home the equalizer, knotting the game 3-3 just under four minutes after the Storm went up.
In the final period, both teams scrambled for chances, but neither were able to bury until the later stages.
With 7:15 to go in the game, Jared Power one-timed the go-ahead goal after a clean face-off win wound up on his stick. The Storm would then survive furious late pressure from the Cats and ultimately ice the game with an empty-netter in the final minute.
The Bobcats went on to out-shoot the Storm 29-27 in the loss. Pierce Diamond made 22 saves on 26 shots for Lloydminster, while Charles-Olivier Levesque stopped 26 of the 29 shots directed his way.
The Bobcats return to action on Wednesday afternoon, when they host the Sherwood Park Crusaders for Hockey Hooky Day! Game time is at 12:00pm.
