For the second straight night the El Paso Rhinos scored a goal in the opening minute and cruised to a shutout win, 14-0, this time beating the Dallas Hawks in Addison, TX.
As they did Friday in a 13-1 win over the Hawks, El Paso topped the century mark in shots-on-goal, breaking their own two-day-old record by one with 103 shots Sunday afternoon.
Meanwhile, Rhinos goaltender Andrew Duff stopped all 12 Hawks’ shots for his first shutout of the season. Arthur Hollinger got his second shutout Saturday night against the Texas Renegades in a 9-0 win.
“We played well again defensively,” said El Paso head coach Cory Herman. “We worked hard and cycled the puck well, walked the lanes well.
“We still need to work on turnovers at the blue lines and we have to get going on our special teams, too. But it’s hard not to be happy with two straight shutouts.”
The Rhinos went 1-for-7 on the power play and scored a short-handed goal for the second straight game.
The defending Thorne Cup champions in the Western States Hockey League, the Rhinos improved to 6-0-0. The team’s 18 points puts them third in the Mid-West Division to Tulsa and San Antonio, each of which has played more games than has El Paso.
As a testament to the team’s top-to-bottom talent, there were no hat tricks Sunday among the 14 goals scored. Rhinos centerman Eric LaBounty got the first goal 53 seconds into the game and scored the last goal of a five-goal second period at 17:40.
Also scoring twice was Drew Montague with two in the first period at 2:43 and 10:03. Jeffrey Schmudlach continued his onslaught, ending the weekend with nine goals in three games, including a pair in Sunday’s tilt at 9:09 of the first and yet another short-handed goal at 5:04 of the third.
Anthony Knuth also notched two markers, both coming in the third period, with a power play goal at 14:13 and the last goal of the game at 16:57.
Trevor Erickson, Kevin Davis, T.J. Burger, Kyle Shapiro, John Scorcia and team captain Nick Gorup also found the back of the net.
The Rhinos hit the road for one more weekend series next weekend against the San Antonio Diablos before returning home to unveil their WSHL championship banner at the Sierra Providence Events Center Friday, Oct. 24, at 7:05 p.m. MDT. El Paso will host the Tulsa Rampage in a weekend series, Oct. 24-26, at the SPEC.
For more information and for season tickets, call the Rhinos office at 915.479.PUCK (7825).
