Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, February 15, 1995 TAG: 9502160031
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RALPH BERRIER JR. STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The Express was victim to yet another shootout massacre as the Greensboro Monarchs jilted Roanoke 5-4 on Glenn Stewart's goal in the fifth round of an overtime shootout.
Like the hard-luck boyfriend who gets all the way to the front porch before seeing the door slammed in his face, the Express, which has blown leads the same way a Valentine sweetheart blows kisses, suffered the latest in a series of late-game rejections.
Roanoke (26-15-9) frittered away a two-goal lead in the third period en route to its league-leading ninth overtime loss.
``Obviously, we do not have the team commitment to outwork an opponent,'' said Roanoke coach Frank Anzalone, whose club has lost eight of 13 shootouts this season. ``I don't have any explanation for that. We don't outwork anybody. ... There were some circumstances in this game that changed the outlook of the game. We overtook those circumstances at times, but we didn't work hard enough to secure a victory.''
Greensboro's Francois Leroux tied the score at 4 by applying a kiss to a Jeff Gabriel centering pass and knocking the puck over Roanoke goalie Daniel Berthiaume.
Neither team scored in overtime, but the teams were hit with 22 penalty minutes and lost two players each to misconduct penalties in the extra period. Greensboro's Jeremy Stevenson and Sergei Stas and Roanoke's Dave Stewart and Chris Potter were handed misconducts after a fracas that left gloves and sticks strewn across the ice.
The Monarchs got on the board first in the five-round shootout when Hugo Proulx deked Berthiaume and gingerly slid a forehand by him. Roanoke made it 1-1 in the shootout when Joe Hawley skated in and sent a wrist shot past goalie Peter Skudra, who replaced Bill Horn after the first period.
Greensboro (22-23-6) won it in the fifth round against Berthiaume, who knocked down Stewart's shot but couldn't stop it from rolling over the goal line. Skudra stuffed Roanoke's Jeff Jestadt to preserve the victory.
Berthiaume, who was playing for the fourth time in five days, replaced starter Dan Ryder in the second period following Leroux's goal from the blue line at the 2-minute, 36-second mark. With Greensboro on a power play, Ryder, apparently thinking Leroux would dump the puck into the Roanoke zone, vacated the net and couldn't recover in time to save the shot that made it 2-2.
The Express recovered to go ahead 4-2 late in the period on Jestadt's wrap-around shot and a Tony Szabo goal off Marty Schriner's centering feed, but Stevenson cut the Monarchs' deficit to a goal when Stevenson directed a Mark DeSantis shot from the point past Berthiaume.
Roanoke had a chance to put away the game with three successive power plays midway through the third - including a pair of five-on-three advantages - but the Express couldn't score.
by CNB