Lodge’s hat trick leads Moose to victory

It was a night of firsts for the Moose that resulted in a big win over the San Antonio Rampage on Friday night at the AT&T Center.

Trailing by two goals as the game approached the end of the second period, the Moose went on a run.

Scott Kosmachuk scored his 19^th goal of the season while on the powerplay to tie Chase De Leo for the team lead.

Just over a minute later Jansen Harkins scored his first career goal off a pass from Axel Blomqvist to tie the game.

Minutes later Blomqvist would be in on another first, while on the powerplay he made a cross-ice pass to Jimmy Lodge who scored his first career goal. The three second-period goals came in a span of 4:22 of game time.

This was only the beginning for Lodge as he would go on to steal the show in third period by scoring two more goals to record a natural hat-trick and seal a 5-2 Moose victory.

The hat-trick was the third by a Moose player this season as Chase De Leo and Patrice Cormier had the others.

With his earlier goal and an assist later in the game, Scott Kosmachuk extended his point streak to three games and gave him his third straight multi-point game. Kosmachuk has two goals and four assists for six points in his last three games.

Dan DeSalvo was able to extend his point streak to seven games with an assist on Lodge’s last goal. During his point streak he has two goals and six assists for eight points.

Goaltender Connor Hellebuyck made 18 saves in the victory. He has won seven of his last nine starts for the Moose.

With the win, the Moose are now .500 since the start of February with a record of 14-14-1-1.

The Moose finish the season series against the Rampage with a perfect 4-0-0-0 record.

Manitoba will wrap up their season on Saturday night when they travel to take on the Texas Stars at 7 p.m.