LAFAYETTE, La. – For the announced crowd of 1,632 at the Cajundome Friday night, Mardi Gras came early. In the Louisiana IceGators’ locker room, the 900-pound gorilla was finally shown the door.
Paced by the two goal and one assist effort of Beau McLaughlin, the IceGators ended the longest losing in the history of the SPHL, hanging on to defeat the Mississippi Surge 5-4, stopping a 20-game slide. The win was also the first for Head Coach Kevin Kaminski who took over the bench just after Christmas in the wake of the firing of Dave MacIsaac.
“I am so proud of our guys,”
Louisiana coach Kevin Kaminski earned his first victory Friday night (Photo courtesy of Louisiana IceGators)
Prior to the win on Friday, Louisiana’s last victory was on December 4th over Huntsville. Since that night, the IceGators had lost six one-goal games (including a shootout and an overtime loss) and been blanked three more times during the run of futility. Loss number 20 was especially tough as the IceGators raced out to a 2-0 lead over I-10 rival Pensacola Thursday night only to see the Ice Flyers score four unanswered goals before surviving Louisiana’s comeback attempt.
During the run, Louisiana was 0-9 on the road and 0-11 at home.
Friday’s tilt with the Surge started out like a carbon copy of Thursday’s game as Louisiana jumped to a 2-0 lead in the first period on goals by McLaughlin on a power play and by newcomer Marc Rechlicz. Rechlicz had joined the team the day before in the wake of leading scorer Trevor Karasiewicz being waived by Kaminski, reportedly at the player’s request.
Mississippi, which entered the game tied with Pensacola atop the SPHL standings, responded with tallies by Rusty Masters and Ryan McCarthy before the first stanza ended, knotting the contest at 2-2.
The Surge took the lead for the first time in the game six minutes into the second period when Nick Klaren scored to make it 3-2. Louisiana stuck with its game plan and tied the game exactly six minutes later on Jeff Bieber’s score.
With the score deadlocked at 3-3 in the final period, Rechlicz set up Jason Hill for a goal that put the IceGators in front to stay four minutes in.
Beau McLaughlin scored the IceGators%27 first and last goals to help break the 20-game losing streak (Photo courtesy of Louisiana IceGators)
Mississippi put the heat on IceGators’ goalie Scott Darling (35 saves on 39 shots) down the stretch, trying desperately to even the score. The Surge were able to pull to within 5-4 on Jeff Grant’s goal with the goalie pulled for an extra attacker at 19:19 of the period. Mississippi’s Matt Zultek had two shots in the final ten seconds but Darling held the fort to earn his fifth win of the season and end the skid. Dan Earles made 21 saves in net for the Surge
While the fans celebrate at home, the IceGators will be traveling overnight to Columbus, GA for a Saturday night contest against the Cottonmouths who beat Fayetteville 7-3 Friday night.
Contact the author at don.money@prohockeynews.com
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