ANCHORAGE, AK – As expected in a tight series that needed the maximum games to play and nearly the maximum amount of time to decide that game, the South Carolina Stingrays and Alaska Aces battled to the very end before the 2009 Kelly Cup championship was decided.
The separating factor was a long empty-net goal by the Stingrays Pierre-Luc O’Brien with just 25 seconds left in the game. O’Brien’s goal made the score 4-2 and took the pressure of South Carolina which was trying to kill off a penalty to former Alaska defenseman Patrick Wellar. With 1:12 left in a one-goal game Wellar was assessed a slashing penalty and it allowed the Aces to pull their goaltender for a 6-on-4 skater advantage. Alaska put pressure on South Carolina and their Kelly Cup MVP–winning goaltender James Reimer, but the goaltender made several key stops to preserve his club’s lead.
As in Game 6 the Stingrays got off to a hot start as they scored the game’s first two goals. Rookie winger Maxime Lacroix fired in his league-leading 13th goal of the playoffs with a hard shot from the right face-off dot. Travis Morin picked up the puck which had been turned loose by an Aces defender and dished it to Keith Johnson who in turn found Lacroix. The lead widened to two when Rob Ricci, playing in place of the injured Nikita Kashirsky, batted in a rebound of a Brad Farynuk shot.
But the never-say-die Aces attempted to forge back into the game when Lance Galbraith’s singular effort brought the Aces to within a score. Galbraith picked up a pass from Colin Hemingway, avoided a hard-hit by Farynuk and beat yet another Stingrays defender before sending the puck Reimer to pull Alaska to within one.
Unlike Game 6 when Alaska did come back from a two-goal deficit the Stingrays managed to stay ahead of the home-town Aces. The eventual Kelly Cup-winning goal was scored by Trent Campbell mid-way through the third period when his hard wrist shot, set up by O’Brien and Farynuk, beat Alaska netminder Jean-Philippe Lamoureux. Alaska had another last-ditch effort in them when Matt Stefanishion’s hard slap shot with fewer than two minutes remaining avoided Reimer’s reach.
Wellar’s penalty became the next obstacle for South Carolina to overcome and they did so thanks to Reimer who stopped 26 Aces shots on the way to victory.
Notes
With the win the Stingrays franchise became just the second franchise to win a third ECHL championship in the league’s 21 year history. The Hampton Roads Admirals are the only other franchise to do so…Alaska fell short in their bid to become just the second team to rally from a 3-1 deficit in the Finals. The Mississippi Sea Wolves turned the trick in 1999 to rally past the Richmond Renegades…Lacroix had six goals in the Finals series and led the league with 13 scores overall…South Carolina coach Jared Bednar became the first person in league history to win the championship three times. Bednar won two championships as a player in addition to this one as a coach…South Carolina became the fourth team to knock off the top-ranked and second-ranked regular season teams on their way to a championship…Alaska’s Josh Soares led all players in scoring during this year’s playoffs with 28 points, 10 of those points came on goals…For the second consecutive evening the two clubs played in front of a sold-out standing room only crowd of 6,610…Thanks to the Stingrays win South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford can expect a shipment of Alaska King Salmon from Alaska Governor Sarah Palin thanks to a friendly wager placed between the two before the series started. The next time those two face-off it may be for something larger in the global setting as both of them have been mentioned in the press as candidates for the 2012 Republican nomination for president.
Contact lm.davis@prohockeynews.com
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