NORTH CHARLESTON, SC – No matter the sport, winning a league championship takes a lot of skill mixed with luck and arguably the most important factor – desire. Put all of those together and a season can magically transform from simply good to magical.
Monday night at the North Charleston Coliseum, the Colorado Eagles captured that magic and it took them to the top of the ECHL.
Luke Salazar’s goal early in the second period provided the margin and rookie goalie Lukas Hafner played like a veteran as the Eagles completed a four-game sweep of the South Carolina Stingrays with a 2-1 victory to capture the franchise’s first ever Kelly Cup championship. Colorado defenseman Matt Register was named playoffs Most Valuable Player, finishing the post-season with eight goals and 24 points, second only to teammate Alex Belzile who led the entire ECHL with 14 tallies and 26 points in the playoffs.
The victory capped an incredible run by the Eagles. Colorado went 16-4 in the four rounds of play, including an amazing eight straight wins after losing game one of the Western Conference finals against the Toledo Walleye.
Everyone on the roster stepped up at different times during the post-season, none more so than Hafner. With just 15 professional games under his belt entering the playoffs, the Western Michigan product went 14-2 with a 2.43 goals against average and a .903 save percentage. He out dueled South Carolina netminder Parker Milner – who himself was a true ironman in playing all but three minutes of the Stingrays run to the finals – to bring a title home to the Centennial State for the first time since the team’s days in the CHL in 2007.
Knowing they had the host Stingrays on the ropes, the Eagles came out flying with hopes of putting the game away early. The only thing that kept the Eastern Conference champs in the game was Milner, who faced eleven Colorado shots in the first nine minutes of play on the way to a 21-save opening period.
Colorado got on the board first thanks to its special teams. Having been handed a four-minute power play when Andrew Cherniwchan high-sticked Matt Grabowsky and drew blood, the Eagles netted their fifth man-advantage tally of the series when Casey Pierro-Zabotel redirected a shot by Register past Milner for his fourth goal of the playoffs at the 17:10 mark.
Fearful of a run by the visitors, South Carolina mounted a quick response and evened the score just 35 seconds later. It came when Olivier Archambault threw the puck toward the net. It took a bounce off to the side where Derek Arnold took control and stuffed a backhander into the cage for his third post-season score.
The Eagles came out of the first intermission like they did to start the game, putting intense pressure on Milner and the Stingrays defense. The puck stayed in the South Carolina defensive zone for almost all of the first 1:19 of play before Salazar banged home the rebound of a shot by Shawn St-Amant that kicked off the end boards right to the winger. For Salazar, it was his his fourth playoff goal and it proved to be the game-winner.
Colorado continued to pound shot after shot on Milner but the Boston University product made save after save to keep his team within reach. Late in the frame, a broken piece of plexiglass caused a lengthy delay that saw both teams head to their locker rooms before being called back out to finish the final 2:36 of play. Hafner was forced to make a key save on a breakaway by Steven McParland with just over a minute left before the second intermission to keep the Eagles ahead going to the final twenty minutes.
The mostly partisan crowd of 5,519 tried its best to will the Stingrays to a tying goal in the third, rising to its feet on numerous occasions to energize their team. On this night however, even two power play opportunities in the final frame for the home team failed to solve the Eagles rookie netminder. With Milner pulled for an extra attacker in the final minute, South Carolina tried to mount one last push but Colorado withstood the attack to earn its place among the elite teams in the history of the ECHL and a skate around the ice with the Kelly Cup.
Hafner finished the night with 25 saves on 26 shots faced, a fitting end to a series where he allowed just nine goals in four games. His counterpart, Milner was brilliant in defeat, stopping 42 of 44 Colorado shots. For the series, Milner made 138 saves to Hafner’s 108 but the young Eagles goalie got the best of the battle on the scoreboard.
Notes: Colorado won the special teams battle, going 5-for-19 on the power play in the series while South Carolina went 3-for-18… The last team to sweep the title series was the Greenville Grrrowl who bested the Dayton Bombers 4-0 in the 2001-02 Kelly Cup Finals… The Stingrays are now 3-2 in finals series… The top three scorers in the playoffs were Belzile (14-12-26), Register (8-16-24) and South Carolina’s Rob Flick (11-11-22)… Stingrays goalie Milner played 1,409 minutes in the playoffs, putting him third on the all-time list for a single season behind former Stingray Jeff Jakaitis (1,679 in 2015) and former Cincinnati netminder Rob Madore (1,493 in 2014).
Contact the author at don.money@prohockeynews.com
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