{WICHITA, Ks.} — The Wichita Thunder defeated Rio Grande Valley 6-2 on Saturday night at Intrust Bank Arena to win the opening round of the CHL playoffs and advance to the conference finals. This is the first playoff series win for Wichita since the 2004-05 season.
It was a physical matchup early in this game as there were 11 total penalties called in the first period alone. Wichita trailed 1-0 early when captain Daniel Tetrault connected on a slap-shot to tied the game at 1. That was the first power-play goal scored by Wichita in the playoffs making them just 1-17 on power plays in the post-season.
The Killer Bees took the lead again just over a minute into the second period as Dan Gendur lit the lamp, but the Thunder came right back once more as R.G. Flath connected twice and Tetrault lit the lamp once more to take a 4-2 lead after two periods.
