CINCINNATI, OH-The South Carolina Stingrays, with an opportunity to sweep their best-of-seven games American Conference finals cashed in on a late defensive lapse by the Cincinnati Cyclones on their way to a 3-2 win. The victory gave the Stingrays a sweep of their American Conference playoff series, the Conference Championship and a berth in the Kelly Cup finals. A mostly disappointed U.S. Bank Arena crowd of 3,933 saw Nikita Kashirsky score the game winner at 17:19 of period three, goalie Jonathan Boutin stop 24 of 26 shots and the ‘Rays’ came back from a 2-0 first period deficit to record the win. The loss ended Cincinnati’s bid to become the first ECHL team to win back-to-back Kelly Cups in ECHL history. Had they turned the trick the Cyclones would have been the first ECHL club to win back-to-back championships since the 1991 and 1992 Hampton Roads Admirals.
Cincinnati dominated the first period, scoring twice while stifling the ‘Rays’ offense. Forward Mark Santorelli got the first goal of period one just as a Cyclones’ power played expired. His goal at 9:41 came when he whistled a wrist shot past Boutin from the middle of the near-side faceoff circle. Jason Woll and Mac Faulkner got assists on the opening strike just as Patrick Weller came out of the penalty box after serving a holding penalty.
The next Cyclones’ goal did come on the power play when Ian McKenzie jammed a puck past Boutin from a crowd in front of the goal at 18:16 with Brad Farynuk in the sin bin. Boutin made several good saves in this power play sequence, but couldn’t kill the penalty. The Cyclones’ pressure came from close in shots which became assists for Jimmy Kilpatrick and Mark Van Guilder. The score added to the Cyclones’ lead and made it a 2-0 deficit for South Carolina at the end of the first period. Despite allowing two goals in the period Boutin was the primary reason the Cyclones didn’t take a more commanding opening period lead.
Period two started as a repeat of the first period with the Cyclones continuing to hold territorial advantage. They were able to hold South Carolina to just five total shots in the second period but goaltender Ryan Nie surrendered two goals due to defensive breakdowns.
The Stingrays cut the deficit to 2-1 at 7:49 when center Pierre-Luc O’Brien stripped the puck from a Cyclones’ forward while on the fore-check and shuffled the puck back to defenseman Josh Godfrey. The big defenseman one-timed a slap shot past Nie from the left point. Godfrey was playing in his first playoff game of this post season after recuperating from a long-term injury.
The next Rays’ goal came on a power play–but with Cincinnati–on the man advantage. The shorthanded goal came at 12:24 when Travis Morin, on the penalty kill, was able to nudge the puck just outside his defensive zone. Forward Maxime Lacroix picked it up behind a pinching defenseman and skated in alone beating Nie with a slap shot from the far side circle. It was Lacroix’s seventh goal in the playoffs.
Thus, despite a strong Cyclones’ effort in the first two periods, the third period started tied with a 2-2 score. Both teams played tight defense for the entire third period. South Carolina managed only five shots in the third period and surrendered only six shots to Cincinnati. It was apparent that both teams realized that the next goal was the likely game-winner and were waiting for a break, odd bounce or a mistake by their opponents.
Just as it looked like overtime was likely, a late mistake resulted in the unassisted game-winning goal by Kashirsky. At 17:29 Nie skated behind his net to help clear a puck, passed it off to a teammate but was a second late getting back into his net. A Cyclones’ clearing pass went directly to the stick of Kashirsky who flipped the puck towards the net from high in the zone. It struck a defender’s skate, changed direction and went past a still moving Nie. While the Cyclones were able to pull Nie with about a minute to go for an extra attacker the Rays’ rode it out and earned their trip to the Kelly Cup Championship series.
“I’m so proud of these guys right now,” said South Carolina coach Jared Bednar. “You put together a team at the beginning of the season with a goal of competing for a Kelly Cup, and that’s exactly what we are doing.”
The first two games of the Kelly Cup Final series are scheduled for Friday May 22 and Saturday May 23 in Anchorage.
Contact the author at Phil.Brand@prohockeynews.com Catch all the playoffs at Intotheboards.net
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