NORTH CHARLESTON, SC – The South Carolina Stingrays grabbed a 3-1 series lead in North Charleston with a 5-0 win over the Alaska Aces. For the Stingrays this was the first “real” multi-goal win in this year’s Kelly Cup finals. The first three games of the best-of-seven games series all featured empty net goals in the waning seconds of each game to give the winning team two-goal margins.
Game 4 was different as the ‘Rays pushed five shots past the ECHL’s Goaltender of the Year Jean-Philippe Lamoureux driving him from the net early in period three. Meanwhile, the ‘Rays young rookie goalie James Reimer, on loan from the Toronto Maple Leafs made his second straight start in the finals. Reimer made the start stand out as he recorded his first professional playoff shutout stopping 27 shots before 5,701 fans at the North Charleston Coliseum.
Jeff Corey. Photo by Phil Brand
Offensively, South Carolina was led by right winger Jeff Corey who scored two goals, his 10th and 11th of the playoffs, while left winger Maxime Lacroix kept pace for the league lead in playoff goals also scoring his 11th marker. Other goals came from forward Matt Scherer and defenseman Brad Farynuk. Travis Morin added two assists to push his assist streak to six games. Keith Johnson and Trent Campbell also contributed two assists to the effort.
Corey struck quickly in the first period taking a pass from Campbell at 5:34 and blasting it high and past the glove of Lamoureux on their first power play of the night. The Aces brought a penalty killing unit that coming into this series was successful over 92 percent of the time but have now given up a power play goal in each game although, they successfully killed the other seven South Carolina power play chances.
The next goal came at the 9:16 mark in the opening period shortly after the Stingrays had successfully killed off the first of seven power play opportunities Alaska had on the evening. Center Morin carried the puck deep into the zone and got it back to the point where Josh Godfrey launched a low missile on net that Lamoureux initially stopped but was unable to corral. Scherer pounced on the rebound and the ‘Rays had a two goal lead going into the second period and Scherer had his 9th playoff marker.
Farynuk made it 3-0 with a quick snap shot from his right point position at 12:21 of period two. His fourth goal of the playoffs came when the puck seemed to deflect past Lamoureux off of someone, perhaps an Aces defender and jumped over the goalie’s outstretched glove. Johnson got the single assist on the goal.
Just over four minutes later at 16:37 the home team scored number four. Lacroix, in his first professional season and enjoying a great post season, broke in with Morin and Johnson and attempted to blast a low shot past Lamoureux. He only got part of the puck and the slap shot turned into a knuckle ball that danced slowly between the goalie’s pads. The change of pace on the puck simply froze the Aces goalie as it landed softly in the net and the 4-0 lead carried into period three.
Corey’s second goal came at 5:38 of the final period and gave Alaska Coach Keith McCambridge a new experience, pulling his starting goalie in the playoffs. About a minute after Corey beat Lamoureux at the mouth of the goal on a marvelous set of passes from defenseman Patrick Wellar to Campbell and on to Corey for the strike, out skated rookie goaltender Matt Lundin to make his professional playoff debut. Lundin stopped five shots in his 13:20 of playing time while Lamoureux who took the loss faced 28 shots.
Assistant Coach Cail MacLean emphasized that the post game discussion with the ‘Rays is to simply focus on winning the next game. “O bviously we can’t expect a game like this tomorrow, but this one sure did feel good.”
Game 5 of the series is scheduled for Saturday at the North Charleston Coliseum with a starting time of 7:05 PM.
Notes: This is the first game of the series in which a referee had to call penalties in the third period. The 5-0 difference in the score contributed to a number of the last stanza penalties called on both teams and especially the Aces as their frustration boiled over. The package containing the Kelly Cup arrived yesterday in South Carolina and it will either be opened tomorrow night or forwarded to Anchorage depending on the result of the next game. Only one team in ECHL history has been able to come back from a 3-1 deficit in the final series.
Contact the author at Phil.Brand@prohockeynews.com
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