Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, March 8, 1994 TAG: 9403080038
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RANDY KING STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Express coach Frank Anzalone, who spent the past two days surveying the damage from back-to-back home losses to Raleigh and Wheeling, said his club faces the ultimate challenge when the Birmingham Bulls call tonight at the civic center.
"This is the toughest time for a coach and players," Anzalone said. "You hit these pitfalls, and you've got to hope like hell you can climb out."
Don't expect the Bulls necessarily to supply Roanoke a ladder. Birmingham (39-18-2) rolls into town with the second-best record in the East Coast Hockey League, not to mention a league-best road mark of 19-9-2.
"We're catching a very tough part of our schedule at a bad time," Anzalone said. "We're seeing a lot of good teams and we're not playing well. That's a bad combination. So there's nothing easy now."
Roanoke (32-26-3), which two weeks ago appeared primed to make a legitimate run at third place in the ECHL East, has been relegated again to looking over its shoulder. The Richmond Renegades are closing the gap in the chase for the final ECHL playoff berth.
Richmond (27-27-5), which helped Roanoke by losing two of three on a weekend swing through the North Division, trails the Express by eight points. Richmond has nine games left - five home, four away. Roanoke has only seven to play - three home, four away.
"We thought the night we beat Richmond here [Feb. 18] it was, `Here we come, third place," Anzalone said. "Now look at it - we're in serious jeopardy of losing a playoff spot altogether."
Anzalone said he first noticed signs of the weekend crash to come last Wednesday in Greensboro, a 4-2 Roanoke loss.
"We started playing poorly the second half of the game there," Anzalone said.
Still, for most, there was no apparent warning for what occurred Friday and Saturday - back-to-back beatings by Raleigh, 9-3, and Wheeling, 6-2.
"A lot of things have simply caught up to us," Anzalone said. "I can list the reasons why this has happened.
"The loss of Lev Berdichevsky [the left wing who signed with Adirondack of the American Hockey League on Feb. 14] is one. Pat Ferschweiler is as good a player as you're going to to find to replace Lev, but he's not going to replace Lev.
"Second, it's lack of practice time. We practiced once in nine days before last weekend [because of other events at the civic center]. We were going to Greensboro one day, but that was called off. We need our conditioning.
"Next, our players have lost focus, and I attribute a lot of that to no ice time for practice. We're back to that October-November thing [when the club was 7-11-0], where we're not practicing.
"Another thing is we're back to the thing where everybody else's goalies are looking awesome again. Wheeling's goalie [Eric Raymond] looked like a big board out there. We're helping 'em by shooting and missing, too. While we can't score, we're giving up way too many easy goals at the other end. We were out of both games last weekend early because our goalies couldn't make the stop.
"And, lastly, we're playing some good teams. Raleigh and Wheeling are two of the better coached and managed clubs in the ECHL.
"Yeah, I can give you a list of things. But I can't correct 'em so easy, though."
\ ICE CHIPS: Roanoke's magic number for eliminating Richmond from playoff contention is 10. Any Express win (two points) or overtime loss (one point) combined with any Renegades loss (two points) or OTL (one point) totaling 10 will end Richmond's bid. The magic number is being posted on a sign atop the civic center facing I-581. . . . Since running off nine straight wins at home, Roanoke has gone 7-5-2 at the civic center. The Express, which at one time was one of the ECHL's best on its home ice, has slid to 20-9-2 overall at home. . . . The Express travels to Greensboro on Wednesday, then gets a rare five-day break before facing South Carolina at home next Tuesday. . . . With three Tuesday dates left, including tonight, Roanoke's home attendance stands at a season-high average of 4,681, 10th in the 19-team ECHL. . . . Roanoke has been outscored 19-6 during its three-game tailspin.
by CNB