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Maybe the road isn't such a bad place to be after all. The Ak-Sar-Ben Knights arrived back from a successful trip to Milwaukee just hours before the start of Saturday night's American Hockey League home game against Iowa. Energized from its fourth straight road win, Omaha thought that its six-game winless streak at the Civic Auditorium was about to end. And for 20 minutes it looked that way, but the Knights mysteriously fell asleep with the lead halfway through the game, and the Stars scooted out the back door with a 3-1 win in front of 2,925 fans. The surging Stars are now over .500 (13-12-1-1) for the first time this season and are only four points behind Omaha - with four games in hand over the Knights. The flip of the switch that turned an energetic Knights squad into a vanilla team halfway through the game is something that bothers the veterans in the group, including leading scorer Carsen Germyn. "I think guys like myself are just too comfortable," Germyn said. "We thought we had 'em tonight, but against a team like (Iowa), they're going to wait for us to make mistakes. We know we had a good first period and had to come out and continue it, but we didn't do it." Captain Craig MacDonald, assigned to Omaha by Calgary on Friday, was appearing in his first game with the Knights in two months. His presence had an early positive impact on the game, but he, too, was guilty of sleeping at the wheel later on. While he set up Omaha's first goal with pure hustle in the first, his giveaway on a penalty kill eventually led to the game winner. "I thought we had a great start. We were playing like we wanted to," MacDonald said. "But for some reason, we stopped moving our feet and then got into penalty trouble." Justin Taylor put Omaha on top with his power-play tally halfway through the first that led to an estimated 2,000 stuffed bears destined for Toys for Tots being lobbed onto the ice. MacDonald created the goal with his neutral zone speed and eventually rimmed the puck into the left corner. Taylor, however, was coming against the grain behind the net, swung out in front and squeezed a backhander past Iowa goalie Dan Ellis (34 saves). The Knights - who play their next four games on the road - were still going strong early in the second until two bad penalties gave the Stars life. Cam Severson was whistled for boarding, and shortly thereafter, goalie Curtis McElhinney was called for delay of game when he gloved a bouncing puck behind the goal and skated it to the front. It took Iowa just more than 30 seconds to cash in when Mattias Tjarnqvist partially fanned on a centering pass but had enough on it to get it through McElhinney's legs. Six minutes later, with the Stars on another power play, the puck squirted to MacDonald high in the slot. With plenty of time to ice it, he held on too long and had his pocket picked. Four shots later, Jan Stastny jammed home a rebound for a 2-1 lead. Iowa (13-12-1-1).........................0 2 1-3 Contact the Omaha World-Herald newsroom Copyright ©2005 Omaha World-Herald®. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, displayed or distributed for any purpose without permission from the Omaha World-Herald. 
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