Penalties costly for Rockford IceHogs

The Rockford IceHogs paid the price for giving the Texas Stars seven power-play opportunities Sunday night and ended up dropping Game 2 of the Calder Cup conference final 3-2 in overtime at Texas.

Texas now holds a 2-0 series lead with Game 3 in Rockford on Tuesday.

The Stars won when Curtis McKenzie scored a power-play goal on a shot from in close with 9:14 left in OT. Gustav Forsling was in the penalty box for tripping.

Rockford had a 1-0 lead after one period on a goal from John Hayden, but the IceHogs were outshot 31-15 after the first 20 minutes.

"They were able to tilt the ice a bunch of times throughout the game," said Rockford coach Jeremy Colliton. "I thought we were able to do that in Game 1. Maybe we didn't get paid off for it, but tonight they did it to us and so then it's tough to generate offense."

Chris DiDomenico scored Rockford's other goal at 11:09 of the second period to tie the game at 2-2. He leads the team with 6 goals in the postseason.

Rockford's Tanner Kero, Hayden and Lance Bouma all were whistled for penalties in the third period. Texas went 2-for-7 on the man advantage.

"We can play better," Colliton said. "We need to play better. We'll find a way to regroup and do that."