In front of a sold out crowd, Rhinos\’ forward Tyler Brady scored the only goal of the game at 5:34 of the second period and goaltender Austin Brihn made it stick, stopping all 23 New Mexico shots, as El Paso extracted a measure of revenge for a 4-3 shootout loss the night before with a 1-0 win Saturday night.
Ironically for the Renegades, goalie Zach Woodman stopped 61 of 62 Rhinos\’ shots but takes the loss with a 98.4 saves percentage.
In his first two starts with New Mexico, Woodman — recently picked up by the Renegades after a stint in the North American Hockey League — has seen 114 shots by the hosts and has stopped 110 of them, yet has a record of 1-1.
It was Brady\’s second effort after Woodman stopped a Tommy Malkmus shot that proved to be the different Saturday night. Brady reached for the puck and missed, drawing Woodman down to the ice at the edge of his crease. But as the puck continued moving toward him, Brady\’s second effort was good enough to put his shot past Woodman\’s skates and into the net.
El Paso improves to 23-5-2 (48 points) and paces the WSHL\’s Mountain Conference while New Mexico drops to 12-17-1 (25 points), still three points out of the fourth and final playoff spot in the Mountain Conference behind the Arizona Red Hawks, who lost to the Cheyenne Stampede.
The Rhinos and Renegades wrap up the three-games series Sunday afternoon at 4:30 p.m. MST. For tickets and information, contact the El Paso Rhinos\’ front office at 915/479.PUCK (7825), or go to www.elpasorhinos.com.
Click the link for Saturday night\’s game stats: http://pointstreak.com/prostats/boxscore.html?gameid=2031453
