The San Antonio Rampage continued their dominance (10-0) of the AHL’s West Division with a home and home sweep of the Texas Stars to run their winning streak to seven games. The Rampage sit atop the division with a 12-6 record.
San Antonio routed the Stars by a 7-1 count in the opener at Cedar Park Center last Friday. Connor Brickley bagged the only goal of the first period, from Mark Mancari and Steven Kampfer, just 1:19 into the action. Bobby Butler scored his ninth of the season, with the assists going to Greg Zanon and Garrett Wilson, to put the Rampage up by two 29 seconds into the middle frame. Brickley scored again, this time with San Antonio on a power play, to push the lead to three. Drew Shore and Mancari combined to set up the power-play marker. The Stars got on the board 31 seconds later, when Justin Dowling beat Dan Ellis to cut the deficit to three at 10:31. The Rampage got one more before the period ended, when Alex Petrovic scored with Shore collecting the lone assist. In the third, Wilson lit the lamp from Petrovic and Shane O’Brien to make it 5-1. The goal was Wilson’s sixth and came on the power play. Brett Olson scored San Antonio’s third power-play goal less than a minute later from Wilson and Shore. Wilson would score again at 7:33 to complete the scoring. Petrovic and Zanon picked up their second assists of the night on the even-strength goal. Ellis finished with 25 saves, while Texas keeper Jack Campbell got tagged with the loss after surrendering the first six goals before giving way to Maxime Lagace.
After a day off, the two teams met again in San Antonio. Dan Ellis stopped 32 shots to lead the Rampage to a 3-0 shutout win. Mark Mancari opened the scoring at 18:55 of the first period from Connor Brickley and Drew Shore. Brickley extended the lead early in the second with a power-play goal at the 1:49 mark. Mancari and Alex Petrovic got the helpers on Brickley’s seventh of the season. Shore iced the game with an empty-netter with 2:22 remaining. Petrovic picked up his second assist of the game on the clincher. The shutout was Eliis’ first of the season and lowered his GAA to 2:13. Jack Campbell made 32 saves for the Stars.
This weekend, the Silver and Black will host the Oklahoma City Barons on Saturday and the Iowa Wild on Sunday at the AT&T Center.
Due to the upper-body injury suffered by Roberto Luongo, the Cats have recalled goaltender Dan Ellis. His spot on the San Antonio roster will be filled by Sam Brittain.
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