Walleye’s road rally falls short

11/2/2013

KALAMAZOO, Mich. — The Walleye fell behind by two goals early before rallying to tie Kalamazoo, but Toledo could not come back again in the third period.

Walleye forward Trevor Parkes scored twice, but Kalamazoo prevailed 6-4 on Friday night.

Toledo (2-2-1) fell for the second straight game and is now 1-1-1 on the road. Kalamazoo (1-2-0) won for the first time this season.

“This is always a very difficult place to play and win games,” Walleye coach Nick Vitucci said. “We knew they would come out with a lot of fire, and that was the case. We battled tonight. Credit Kalamazoo for the job they did tonight.”

The Wings controlled most of the first period as they outshot Toledo 11-3 and scored twice on Toledo goaltender Mac Carruth. Kalamazoo went up 1-0 with a power play goal at 13 minutes, 33 seconds from David Pacan, then Adam Polasek made it 2-0 with a shorthanded goal at 16:09 for the first-period goals.

Toledo closed the gap when Travis Novak wristed a shot over the glove hand of goaltender Joel Martin (16 saves) at 5:34 of the second period.

The Walleye tied the game at 2 when Alden Hirschfeld set up Parkes for his third goal of the season at 9:45. But the Wings scored twice later in the period to lead 4-2 after two periods.

Just eight seconds into the third period, Scott Arnold collected his fourth goal of the season for Toledo.

Kalamazoo regained a two-goal lead when Yanni Gourde beat Carruth with a wrist shot. Parkes scored his second goal of the game at 14:41 of the third period with a wrist shot to make it 5-4. However, Kalamazoo got an empty-net goal to cap the scoring.

Carruth made 35 saves on 40 shots and improved to 2-1-0. Kalamazoo outshot Toledo 41-20.

The teams meet again at 7:15 p.m. today at the Huntington Center.

-themed jerseys. The Stanley Cup will also be on display.Star WarsBoth teams will be wearing

Toledo is in the midst of a stretch of four games in five days.

Prior to the game, goaltender Jared Coreau was recalled to the Grand Rapids Griffins of the AHL.

Coreau was 0-1-1 in his two starts for the Walleye. Toledo signed goaltender Eric Levine as an emergency backup. Levine played in college at Robert Morris University.