SIOUX CITY -- Missed opportunties are part of the reason why the Sioux City Musketeers are on a three-game losing streak.

Blown scoring chances have led to only four goals in the last nine periods for Coach Luke Strand's squad, which will face one of the league's stingiest defenses tonight in United States Hockey League action at the Tyson Events Center.

Indiana, 5-2-1 and last year's Clark Cup champion, enters the 7 p.m. game allowing just 18 goals, a figure that ties with West Division leader Omaha as the best in the league. The Ice have won four of their last five games, yielding just seven goals in that span.

Last weekend, the Ice posted 2-1 and 7-0 victories over Waterloo, a playoff team a year ago that has won just twice this season.

"Indiana gives up the least amount of goals, yet they haven't scored a bunch of goals themselves," said Strand, whose squad has a 3-6 record and will have another tough home game Saturday against Omaha.

"It's going to be a tight game. (Indiana) has all of the characteristics of a winning team. We're going to have to play a tight game and we need guys going hard for 60 minutes. We're the team that scores the least (16 goals) in this league and they've got a goalkeeper (Cab Morris) who has a .952 save percentage.

"We have to get bodies to the net. We have to work under their defense and be hard on the pucks."

Sioux City was limited to a league-record 11 shots in Friday's 3-0 loss to Green Bay and trailed 4-0 when Sioux Falls' Jacob Johnstone scored four minutes into the second period on Saturday night.

The Musketeers scored three unanswered goals in the final 15 minutes of the period. Adam Schmidt, who had five goals and nine assists a year ago in his rookie season, tallied goals seven minutes apart and Stephan Vigier (15 goals, 33 assists last season) notched his third goal of the season to pull Sioux City within 4-3.

Sioux Falls closed off its second win of the season over Sioux City, though, with three third-period goals.

Overall, the Musketeers have been blanked in seven of their last nine periods.

"Part of it is a learning curve, per se," said Strand. "We're one of the best teams in the league in goals allowed, but last in scoring and that's the biggest poke in the eye a team could have. We know we can score. We just have to get after it. And, at the same time, we have to find different bodies to score or find some different means of scoring. We're working on both."

Matt Paape leads the Musketeers with six points (3 goals, 3 assists) while Vigier has five points (3, 2). Clinton Bourbonais (2 goals) is still out with an upper-body injury.

Sioux City goalkeeper Matt Skoff (2-3, 3.11 goals-against average) will face an Indiana attack led by Antti Roppo and Shane Berschbach, each with four goals and one assist. Nick Bailen and Nic Dowd actually have six points each for the Ice, but they've both done it with one goal and five assists.