ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, April 3, 1996 TAG: 9604030053
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RALPH BERRIER JR. STAFF WRITER
The final game of the season was typical of the playoffs for the Roanoke Express.
It was too darned short.
About one second short, as the Roanoke wing Tim Christian's last-ditch crack at the Charlotte Checkers goal found the back of the net well after the final horn sounded in the Express' 3-2 loss Tuesday night.
In holding off the Express, the Checkers, who rallied for three goals in the third period, won their first playoff series in franchise history by sweeping the first round of this East Coast Hockey League Riley Cup series three games to none.
``What a finish!'' said the Checkers' John Marks, who has coached the team in each of its three seasons. ``If the game had lasted a couple more seconds, they'd have tied it. They went down fighting.''
Went down the Express did, failing to hold on to a tenuous 1-0 lead as the Checkers scored three goals in a span of 5 minutes, 50 seconds in the third period. Roanoke tried to rally when coach Frank Anzalone replaced goalie Daniel Berthiaume with a sixth attacker in the final two minutes.
Ilya Dubkov shoveled a puck over Charlotte goalie Ken Shepard to make it 3-2 with 52 seconds left.
``I though maybe we had a chance,'' Dubkov said. ``But we had plenty of chances all night.''
With 10 seconds left, Craig Herr's shot from the right faceoff circle got behind Shepard, but he gloved it.
After a faceoff, Dave Stewart put the puck on net and Christian converted the rebound well after the horn.
``Yes, the game was over when that puck went in,'' Anzalone said. ``We worked hard, tried to get a break. It just wasn't meant to be for us, but was [meant to be] for them.'
Charlotte's first goal came at 5:02, when Marty Yewchuk knocked the puck behind Berthiaume. The goalie had made a save, but the puck squirted free in a goal-mouth pileup.
``I think the ref's got to blow the whistle there,'' Anzalone said. ``He was the only one who said the puck was still moving.''
Fifty-two seconds later, Shawn Wheeler hammered a back-door goal behind Berthiaume off a centering pass from Phil Berger. At 10:52, Eric Flinton scored from the slot off a Scott Kirton pass from the right corner.
``We didn't want to come back here Thursday'' for Game 4, Wheeler said. ``We knew our job would be twice as difficult if that happened. We didn't want them to have any life.''
Even though Charlotte goalie Nick Vitucci had seven consecutive victories over the Express, including the first two games of this series, Marks made the surprising move of starting Shepard on Tuesday.
Unfortunately for the Express, Shepard played a lot like Vitucci, the ECHL's all-time winningest goalie in regular-season and postseason play. Shepard, a farmhand of the New York Rangers who spent part of the season with Binghamton in the American Hockey League, stopped 30 of 32 shots.
``He's a great goalie,'' Marks said. ``I would have started him in Game 2 if Nick hadn't had a shutout [3-0] in Game 1.''
After a scoreless first period, Roanoke took a 1-0 lead at 9:17 of the second when Karry Biette swooped in to bury a rebound after Shepard denied Jeff Jestadt on a wraparound attempt.
That was the only scoring of the period, which was marked by some swift end-to-end action that resulted in some exciting plays, but no goals.
The Express supplied much of the action on both ends of the ice. A couple of minutes after assisting Biette, Jestadt stole the puck and made a pinpoint centering pass to Jason Clarke, whose tip-in try hit the side of the net.
With less than a minute left in the period, Jeff Jablonski tried to make the play of the series by swiping at the puck while being tripped up from behind on a breakaway. The puck slid harmlessly wide as Jablonski skidded into the net.
Although Shepard couldn't stop Biette (or Jablonski, for that matter), many of his 21 saves in the first two periods were spectacular, like his back-to-back glove snares of hard power-play shots by Jablonski and Dave Stewart.
Not to be shown up in his own building was Berthiaume, who flopped all over the crease in making several fine stops, including two tumbling saves against Charlotte rebound chances with three minutes left in the second period.
Roanoke caught a bad break in the first when Clarke's apparent goal was disallowed because referee Scott Hansen ruled he was in the crease.
``We didn't get any breaks,'' Anzalone said. ``No calls. Charlotte had great talent. They went after us, but we didn't get any breaks.''
see microfilm for box score
LENGTH: Medium: 91 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: WAYNE DEEL/Staff The Express' Ilya Dubkov battles theby CNBCheckers' Marty Yewchuk for the puck on a faceoff in the Charlotte
zone Tuesday night. Charlotte won 3-2 to eliminate Roanoke from the
ECHL playoffs. color