MANCHESTER, NH – Wade Murphy and Quentin Shore scored two points each, and the Manchester Monarchs snapped their four-game losing streak by defeating the Atlanta Gladiators 4-1 Friday night at SNHU Arena.
The Monarchs (32-19-7-4) took the first meeting of the season with the Gladiators (23-29-6-2) in the opener of a two-game weekend series with the ECHL affiliate of the Boston Bruins.
“We played with good structure tonight and got back to doing the things that made us successful earlier in the season,” Monarchs Head Coach Rich Seeley said. “We played with a little more jump than we have in the last few weeks, and it was a true team effort out there with guys doing the little things to put their teammates in the best position to succeed.”
The Monarchs opened the scoring at 18:42 of the first period when Murphy scored his 2nd goal of the season. Shore dropped a pass to Murphy in the high slot where he one-timed a slap shot past the blocker of Gladiators goaltender, Dan Vladar, to give the Monarchs a 1-0 lead.
The Gladiators tied the contest 41 seconds into the second period on a power-play goal by Eric Neiley, his 24th goal of the season. Former Monarchs forward, Alex Guptill, tossed the puck to Neiley at the front of the crease where he batted the puck out of the air past Monarchs goaltender, Colin Stevens, to make the score 1-1.
Peter Leblanc netted his first goal with the Monarchs at 8:25 of the middle frame to give Manchester a 2-1 lead. Murphy forced a turnover above the left circle where Leblanc gathered the puck and blasted a wrister over the glove of Vladar for his 11th goal of the season.
The Monarchs extended their lead to 3-1 at 12:04 of the second period when Teddy Doherty scored 7th goal of the season. Kevin Morris fed the puck to Doherty at the blue line where he raced into the zone and sailed a wrister into the back of the net from the right circle.
David Kolomatis sealed the victory for the Monarchs with his 7th goal of the season coming on the power play at 14:24 of the final frame. Shore brought the puck up the left boards and found Kolomatis at the point where he fired a shot past the glove of Vladar to make the score 4-1.
The Monarchs are back on the ice Saturday at 6 p.m. when they finish their two-game series with the Atlanta Gladiators on Super Hero night at SNHU Arena.
Notes: David Kolomatis scored the 50th goal of the career… Wade Murphy recorded the first multi-point game of his career… Mario Puskarich notched his first professional point with an assist in his first professional game… Rob Hamilton made his professional debut.
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