WICHITA, Kan. (Jan. 12) – Wichita returned to action on Friday night, falling in overtime to Cincinnati, 4-3, at INTRUST Bank Arena.
Roman Kinal, Connor MacEachern and Jason Pineo provided the offense for the Thunder.
After a scoreless first, the Thunder opened the scoring early in the second. Kinal went coast-to-coast and beat Olof Lindbom at 32 seconds that brought out the teddy bears.
Cincinnati answered at 3:04 when Sahil Panwar beat Georgi Romanov for his 12th of the season.
MacEachern re-gained the lead at 6:16 with a one-timer from the low slot that beat Lindbom to make it 2-1.
In the third, the Cyclones recorded back-to-back power play goals to take a 3-2 advantage. Louie Caporusso tucked home a rebound at 40 seconds to tie the game at two.
Justin Vaive pounced on a rebound at 9:13 after a Patrick Polino chance was stopped by Romanov and gave Cincinnati its first lead.
Wichita answered quickly as Pineo intercepted a pass in the slot and fired a shot past Lindbom at 10:09 to make it 3-3.
The two teams weren’t able to end the game in regulation and headed to overtime.
At 51 seconds, Polino caught up to a loose puck in the Thunder zone and beat Romanov for his 15th of the year and a 4-3 win.
Wichita went 1-for-3 on the power play. Cincinnati was 2-for-5 on the man advantage.
The Thunder are winless in their last seven games. Kinal has points in three-straight and goals in two of his last three outings. Pineo has goals in two of the last three. Peter Bates has three assists in in his last three contests.
