By Dave Hart
LocalSportsJournal.com

MUSKEGON – A big lead in a hockey game doesn’t guarantee a win and the Muskegon Lumberjacks almost learned that the hard way on Saturday night.

The Jacks came out of the gate swinging, scoring three goals in the first 2:14 of the contest to take an early 3-0 lead.

But Chicago mounted a comeback, forcing a late tie heading into the final period.

Justin Solovey finally broke the tie with just over two minutes left, propelling Muskegon to a 4-3 win over the Steel at Trinity Health Arena. The Lumberjacks have now won three straight games and are 15-9-2 on the season, good for 32 points and fourth place in the USHL’s Eastern Conference.

Muskegon will have a two-week holiday break before returning to action Thursday, Dec. 28 against the Under-18 Team USA squad on the road. 

“We talked about going into the game with our foot on the gas and not taking it off,” said Lumberjacks assistant coach Evan Trupp. “It was good to see we had a great start but we kind of took our football off the gas. But it was good to see us have a strong finish and it was good to see us get rewarded with a win.”

It didn’t take too long for the Lumberjacks to open the scoring as Ethan Whitcomb found the back of the net just 56 seconds into the contest.

Muskegon continued its early onslaught with two more goals just 48 seconds apart to take a 3-0 lead. Justin Solovey scored 1:26 into the first period before Ty Henricks found the back of the net at the 2:14 mark.

The Lumberjacks forced Chicago to pull its starting goalie Christian Manz after just three shots faced in a little over two minutes of play.

Muskegon failed to add on to its early three-goal lead during the remainder of the opening period. But they also kept the Steel off the scoreboard during the first 20 minutes of play while holding a commanding 13-5 advantage in shots on goal.

The Steel struck first in the second period with a goal from Kolin Sisson at the 6:37 mark of the period. The goal needed to be checked over for a possible high stick but was called a good goal after a long video review.

The Steel added another goal 12 minutes into the middle period to cut their deficit to 3-2. Thor Byfuglien scored for Chicago as both teams had a player come back on the ice after matching penalties.

Chicago completed the three-goal comeback at the 16:50 mark of the second period with a goal from Ben Wilmott.

The game remained tied 3-3 heading into the final period with the Jacks holding a 22-18 shots on goal advantage.

Both teams had excellent chances to get the go-ahead goal early in the third period with power play opportunities, but each squad failed to score on their man advantage.

The Lumberjacks finally took back the lead with just 2:02 remaining in the contest as Solovey connected with his second goal of the night to give Muskegon a 4-3 lead.

Muskegon outshot the Steel 31-27 as Beau Lane earned another win in net for the Jacks. He stopped 24-of-27 shots on net.