The Tahoe Knight Monsters dropped game one of their series against the Kansas City Mavericks 2-1, and fell to second in the mountain division in the process. Tahoe netminder Jordan Papirny carded a valiant effort in between the pipes with 28 saves, but was saddled with his first loss in January. 

The first period began with a bang for Tahoe, as Artur Cholach started the scoring under nine minutes in with his seventh goal of the season. But KC would equalize a few minutes later on a Landon McCallum breakaway goal to make it 1-1.

That goal was the first goal allowed by Papirny since the series against Rapid City in mid-January, which was about 190 minutes of game time.

In the second, McCallum struck again with a wrister off the rush about 12 minutes in. While he allowed the goal, Papirny still made 12 saves in the frame, including some fantastic sprawling stops with Tahoe on the penalty kill.

The Knight Monsters were unable to break past KC netminder Jack LaFontaine in the third, firing off 14 shots on goal but being stonewalled at every turn. They had a late power play opportunity, but were unable to find the back of the net. And the final buzzer sounded on a 2-1 loss to open the series. 

The Knight Monsters will look to regroup for game two of the series against KC, with puck drop on Friday, January 31 scheduled for 5:05 pm.