SteelHounds suffer 5-3 loss against Texas

Youngstown coach Kevin Kaminski was upset with his team’s effort.

By CHUCK HOUSTEAU

VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT

YOUNGSTOWN — Youngstown Steelhounds’ coach Kevin Kaminski said he may not be done tinkering with the team’s roster following the ’Hounds’ 5-3 loss to Texas Wednesday night.

“The trade deadline isn’t until Monday,” Kaminski said. “Put that in the paper and maybe that’ll shake up these guys. Maybe they’ll compete.”

Kaminski was upset that the Steelhounds (26-15-2) couldn’t take advantage of the big 4-1 win Tuesday before a huge crowd to put away the Brahmas and deliver a knockout punch.

“We showed up but we didn’t compete,” Kaminski said. “We had a chance to bury these guys in the standings and now they are right back in it.

“We went over video. We were well prepared but you have to be mentally and physically ready yourself and we weren’t.”

Trailing 4-3 late in the contest, Youngstown peppered Texas’ goalkeeper Brett Jaeger for the final seven minutes of the contest and had several good shots on goal in an effort to tie the game.

Kaminski pulled goalie Andy Franck in the final minute and the Steelhounds had two more good opportunities to tie the game but couldn’t deliver.

The Brahmas ended the threat when Jordan Cameron scored an empty net goal with 25 seconds left in the game.

Kaminski said the effort was too little and too late.

“It’s a 60 minute game,” Kaminski said. “You just can’t turn it up when your desperate and a goal down. You gotta play desperate the whole game, every shift.

“We didn’t do that. We had too many passengers tonight.”

The Brahmas (22-18-1) struck early in the game and scored on the first of their three power play goals just four minutes into the contest when Scott Sheppard netted a shot off a pass from Blair Manning.

The Steelhounds responded quickly and tied the game a minute later on a goal by Mark Odut.

Youngstown scored a goal late in the first period on another power play when Joel Irving scored on an assist from Petr Pohl and Erik Przepiorka and led 2-1 at the end of the first period.

Texas scored two goals early in the second period to erase the Steelhounds’ advantage and led 3-2 before

Youngstown tied the game with 2:31 left on a power play goal by Steve Birnstill.

In the final period, the Brahmas scored the go-ahead goal with 16:12 left in the contest on a rebound shot by Tim Laurila.

“We had too many lazy penalties,” Kaminski said. “That gave them opportunities to score on the power play.”

Kaminski said that his team has to come to the Chevrolet Centre with a different attitude when they open a 3-game series with the Mississippi River Kings Friday night.

“It isn’t getting any easier with three games this weekend,” Kaminski said. “That’s why this was a must-win.

“We had all the momentum going our way and now we let it slip away.”