Bulldogs Fall To Griffs 5-3
10/24/07
HAMILTON, ON - The Hamilton Bulldogs dropped a 5-3 decision to the Grand Rapids Griffins on Wednesday night at Copps Coliseum. With the loss, Hamilton's record drops to 3-3-0-1 on the season.
For the first time this season, the Bulldogs opened the scoring when
Cory Urquhart notched his first goal of the campaign at 4:19 of the first period. Earning assists on the goal were Matt D'Agostini and Maxim Lapierre. Hamilton had surrendered the game's opening goal in each of its first six games.
Grand Rapids evened the score 1-1 at 18:13 of the first period on Jamie Tardif's first goal of the season. Evan McGrath registered the only assist on the play.
With two goals in 28 seconds early in the middle stanza, Grand Rapids took a 3-1 lead. Carl Corazzini restored the Griffs one-goal lead at the 1:09 mark when Mark Cullen and Brett Engelhardt combined to set-up Corazzini's third goal of the season. The Griffins then increased their lead to 3-1 at 1:37 when Tardif tallied his second goal of the game.
The Bulldogs responded at 11:16 of the second period when
Duncan Milroy beat Griffins netminder Jimmy Howard with a wrist shot to the top-right corner to make the score 3-2. Corey Locke drew the lone assist on Milroy's third marker of the season.
With just 1:36 remaining in the second frame, the Griffins went up 4-2 courtesy of Mark Hartigan's second goal of the campaign. Randall Gelech and Mattias Ritola earned helpers on the goal.
The teams exchanged goals in the third period. McGrath gave the Griffins a 5-2 lead at the 2:50 mark. Then
Jonathan Ferland finished off a tic-tac-toe passing play from Sergei Kostitsyn and Jean-Philippe Cote for his fourth goal of the season at 6:54 to round out the game's scoring at 5-3.
Yann Danis suffered the loss for Hamilton with 38 saves on 43 shots while Howard turned aside 23 of 26 shots in a winning effort for Grand Rapids.
The Bulldogs went 1-for-3 on the power play and a perfect 4-for-4 on the penalty kill.
The defending Calder Cup Champion Hamilton Bulldogs return to action on Saturday, October 27th at 8:00 p.m. when they travel to Toronto to take on the Marlies at Ricoh Coliseum. The Bulldogs next home game is on Sunday, October 28th at 4:00 p.m. when they host the Rockford IceHogs at Copps Coliseum.
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