Stingrays skate past Royals 4-1

READING, Pa – The South Carolina Stingrays completed a successful road trip with a 4-1 win against the Reading Royals before 4,526 fans at the Sovereign Center Sunday afternoon in Reading, Pennsylvania. The victory was their third win in four games against teams in the North Division of the ECHL’s American Conference.

The Stingrays opened the four game trip with a 4-1 win at Dayton against the Bombers, then moved on to win 6-3 at Johnstown against the Chiefs before losing a bizarre 9-7 All-Star game type scoring fest at Trenton against the Devils on Saturday. Winning goaltender Jonathan Boutin made his tenth straight start and ran his record to 17-7-1-1 stopping 30 of 31 Reading shots on goal. Seven of his wins have been in the South Carolina net. Boutin was traded to the Stingrays by the Victoria Salmon Kings in late January. Boutin bounced back with an excellent performance after the Ray’s defensive effort, allowed the aforementioned nine goals Saturday night. Michael Ouzas was in goal for the Royals’ loss. The Rays jumped out to an early lead scoring two goals in the first ten minutes of the game. Nate Kiser scored his seventh goal of the season with one of his laser beam slap shots from the point at 7:29 of the first period on a power play. His goal was set up by Maxime Lacroix and Keith Johnson. Johnson is on a scoring spree with nine goals and four assists so far in February. Less than two minutes later at 9:15, Trent Campbell scored his 11^th goal of the season. His goal scored from about 12 feet out in the slot on a wrist shot that turned out to be the game winner. Jeff Corey provided the pass to set up this goal and got the only assist. The second period was a scoreless affair until the last minute of the stanza. First, South Carolina lit the lamp with their second power play goal at 19:40 again on a slap shot from the point. This time defenseman Josh Godfrey scored his third goal of the 2008-09 campaign, and was assisted by Trent Campbell and center Pierre-Luc O’Brien. Secondly, just when it looked like the Stingrays would skate off the ice at the end of the period with a 3-0 lead, forward Scott Estey, playing in his first ECHL game on call-up from the Eastern Professional Hockey League (EPHL), fired a shot from high in the slot to score the only goal of the night for Reading with only four seconds left in the period. Bobby Davey and Scott Langdon were credited with assists on the goal. The 3-1 score stood up until 18:08 of the final period. Travis Morin scored his 17^th goal of the season into an empty net shortly after Reading pulled their goalie for an extra attacker. The goal was his second empty netter in his last three games. Bryson Busniuk got one of the assists and Maxime Lacroix the other on the goal which sealed the 4-1 win. The Stingrays played for a much of the game, and for the second straight night, with only three regular defensemen. Victor Dovgan, who didn’t play at Trenton due to the flu, dressed but played sparingly. Coach Bednar used forward Bryson Busniuk on defense to fill in for Dovgan. Bednar praised both Boutin and the undermanned defense for their effort in his post game interview. The three wins on the trip allowed to the Rays to hold on to second place in the South Division with a tenuous three point lead over the suddenly strong Charlotte Checkers. The Checkers have two games in hand on the Rays and are coming off of three straight wins against the first place Florida Everblades. The Checkers and Stingrays meet Tuesday night North Charleston in the start of the final push towards the playoffs. The Rays have 17 games left on the season, with all but one against South Division opponents. Ten of the games will be played at home. Contact the author at Phil.Brand@prohockeynews.com