MANCHESTER, NH – There is nothing better in professional sports than a game seven in a playoff series. It is the ultimate test of nerves and skill where every play is magnified and even the smallest mistake can be the difference between continuing a season and going home for the summer.
When the game seven has a trip to the league championship series as its prize, the stakes grow that much bigger. Just ask the South Carolina Stingrays.
Wednesday night at SNHU Arena, Olivier Archambault played the role of hero with a pair of goals including the game-winner as the Stingrays edged the Manchester Monarchs 4-3 in front of an announced crowd of 2,255. The victory earned South Carolina a trip to Loveland, Colorado to take on the Colorado Eagles in game one of the ECHL Kelly Cup Finals on Friday night.
Archambault’s winning score with a little over eleven minutes left in regulation came in much the same way as many of the goals by the Stingrays in the series did. When the puck was sent back to Joey Leach at the point, Archambault went to the front of the Manchester net. From there he was able to get his stick on the Shot by Leach and redirect it past Monarchs goalie Sam Brittain to give his team the lead for good.
From there, South Carolina netminder Parker Milner – who was back in the net after being pulled in game six – made it stand up as he finished off a 24-save effort by holding off Manchester down the stretch.
As they had in all but one of the previous games in the series, the Monarchs got on the scoreboard first. It came 4:18 into the opening period when Zac Lynch took a stretch pass from Matt Leitner and exploded through the neutral zone into the South Carolina defensive zone. Lynch turned the corner on a defender and cut toward the net, going from his backhand to his forehand to tuck the puck past Milner for the game’s first goal. For Lynch, it was his eighth post-season tally this year.
A little over three minutes later, the visiting Stingrays responded to even the score. Domenic Monardo fed the disc back to Marcus Perrier at the point. He found a shooting lane and put the puck on net where Brittain made the save. The rebound jumped away from the goalie to where Rob Flick could get it and he stashed it into the back of the net for his team-leading 11th playoff goal.
The Stingrays penchant for going to the penalty box got them in trouble in the latter stages of the opening frame. Overlapping penalties to Monardo and Flick left the visitors down two men for 14 seconds, a situation that South Carolina’s special teams handled well. Late in the ensuing five-on-four Manchester advantage, Lynch set up former Stingray Colton Saucerman for a one-time blast from the top of the left circle that eluded Milner’s blocker for a power play tally and the rugged defenseman’s second goal of the playoffs.
Manchester had a chance to extend its lead at the start of the second period thanks to Flick’s second minor infraction of the contest as the first frame closed. Milner and his teammates easily killed off the disadvantage and the teams spent most of the middle stanza trying to create opportunities that were coming with less and less frequency.
Late in the period, the Stingrays were able to find their offense for a pair of scores within the space of a minute and ten seconds. At the 14:41 mark, Andrew Cherniwchan sent a shot in the direction of the net but it never got there as it was blocked in front of Brittain. Monardo was the first player to get to the loose biscuit and he promptly put it into the back of the net for his sixth goal of the playoffs.
Seconds later, South Carolina took its first lead of the game. Defenseman Wade Epp lofted the puck out into the neutral zone from his own end. Kelly Zajac was able to knock it down and gain control to set up an odd-man rush. He then fed Archambault who drove the net, going to his forehand before drawing to his backhand and tucking the puck past Brittain for his sixth post-season score.
Manchester was not going to go without a fight and pulled even 3:17 into the final frame. Tyler Sikura sent the puck to Ashton Rome who sped through center ice and into the South Carolina end. He dipped into the slot area and beat Milner to the catching glove side for his ninth to make it a 3-3 game, setting the stage for Archambault to net the winner a little under six minutes later.
Brittain was again a reason why the Monarchs had a chance to win, making 25 saves in a losing effort. The Stingrays went 0-for-1 with a man advantage while the Monarchs were 1-for-3. In the series, the Stingrays were successful on four of twenty attempts while Manchester connected seven times in 38 opportunities.
Notes: The trip to the finals will be South Carolina’s fifth in franchise history, the last coming in 2015 when the Stingrays fell to Allen in a seven-game slugfest… The Stingrays have three title banners hanging at the North Charleston Coliseum, the last coming in 2009 when they defeated the Alaska Aces… This year’s finals will be the first for Colorado.
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