Mudbugs Move Into First Place Tie
 
North Richland Hills, TX – The Bossier-Shreveport Mudbugs moved into a tie with Youngstown for first place in the Northeast Division with their third straight victory over the Texas Brahmas on Monday.  Tyrel Lucas scored on a beautiful wrist shot from the blue line to break a 1-1 third period tie as the Mudbugs won 2-1 on New Year’s Eve at the NyTex Sports Centre.

Bossier-Shreveport has now won eight consecutive games to end 2007, and finished up the year with back-to-back-to-back wins over Texas , outscoring them 11-2 along the way.  The Mudbugs have limited their opponents to less than two goals in five of their last six games.

Texas started out strong in the first period of play, getting traffic in front of goaltender John DeCaro and forcing the two-time All-star to make a few very impressive saves.  Bossier-Shreveport then had a two-man advantage for a full two minutes but was unable to score against new Brahmas goaltender Brett Jaegar.  On their next powerplay though, the Mudbugs broke through to take a 1-0 lead.  Tyrel Lucas hustled across the rink to take the puck away from Anders Strome and came off the boards to send a wrist shot on net.  When Jaegar made that save, but Joe Ori was right on the doorstep to put home to rebound for his 11th goal of the year.  That’s how the first period would end, 1-0 for the ‘Bugs.

The game was hard-fought into the second period as well, with Texas finding a way to tie it up on a nice feed from Chris Thompson to Tyler Skworchinski.  Just after a Brahmas powerplay had expired, Thompson passed the puck from behind the net to Skworchinski, who put it just inside the post past a screened John DeCaro.  The second period would end with the game tied up at one.

In the third period, both teams skated hard and had scoring chances, but neither could break the tie for the first 12 minutes.  Then Daniel Pegoraro chipped the puck to at neutral ice to Joe Ori, who backhanded a nice pass between his legs to a streaking Lucas.  Lucas skated into the Texas zone 1-on-2 before firing a laser of a wrist shot off the post and in from just inside the blue line.  John DeCaro and the Mudbugs defense held for the rest of the way and Bossier-Shreveport won for the eighth straight game.

DeCaro finished with 29 saves in the game as the Mudbugs were actually outshot 30-17 in the contest.  The ‘Bugs were 1 for 3 on the powerplay, while the Brahmas finished 0 for 5 against the Mudbugs penalty killers.

Up next for the Mudbugs are their first two home games of 2008.  Friday night at CenturyTel Center , Bossier-Shreveport will welcome another visit from the Oklahoma City Blazers before taking on the Mississippi RiverKings for the seventh time this year on Saturday night.  Opening faceoff on Friday night is set for 7:05 pm as the Mudbugs look to go 3-0 against Oklahoma City this year.  Tickets are available through Ticketmaster or by calling the Mudbugs office at 318-752-BUGS.