FALCONS GAIN A POINT, FALL IN OVERTIME TO SHARKS
By: Corey Tomlinson
January 23, 2009 – The Springfield Falcons are coming on strong as the All-Star break approaches, ringing off a 3-1 record in the four games prior to facing the Worcester Sharks on Friday night in Springfield.
Reinforced by the returns of Ryan Potulny, Liam Reddox and Gilbert Brule from Edmonton earlier in the week, the Falcons earned a point by pushing Worcester into overtime, eventually losing 4-3 on Ryan Vesce's fourth overtime goal of the season. The Falcons are now 16-21-6-1 on the season with one game remaining before the All-Star break on Sunday.
Both teams came out ready to play hard and physical from the start, with several fights and heavy hits early in the contest.
Worcester struck first after a particularly vicious bout. With Springfield's Guillaume Lefebvre in the box and the Falcons down a man because of an instigator penalty, Worcester's Patrick Traverse found himself open on top of the Falcons' crease. A quick snap shot over Devan Dubnyk gave Traverse his 4th goal of the season and the Sharks a 1-0 lead.
It looked like that's how the period would end. With four penalties on the board between the teams and the Falcons trying to kill a 4-on-3 Sharks power play, Worcester's goalie was pulled with just under five seconds remaining in the period with the puck deep in Springfield's end. Tyler Spurgeon won the faceoff cleanly back to Mathieu Roy, who launched an ice-length wrist shot into Worcester's unprotected net to knot the game at one just before time expired.
A quiet second period gave way to an offensive battle in the third. Worcester struck quickly in the final frame on a long point shot by Brett Westgarth that deflected past Dubnyk's pad and found the back of the net on a strange bounce.
The Falcons found their scoring touch thanks to their power play later in the period. Potulny tied the game on a perfect one-timer setup by linemate Shane Willis in the slot, beating Worcester goaltender Thomas Greiss to the glove side for his team leading 18th tally of the season.
Springfield's power play struck again later in the period for the first Falcons' lead of the night. This time it was Bryan Lerg connecting a rebound off the backboards and shoveling a backhand over Greiss for his 8th goal of the year.
Unfortunately for the home crowd of 4996, late period heroics tied the game for a second time; this time the Sharks took advantage. With Greiss off the ice for the second time in the contest and an extra attacker on the ice, Traverse launched a long wrist shot on net that Cory Larose somehow deflected out of the air and past Dubnyk, tying the game and sending it to overtime.
FALCONS LINEUP
Lerg – Potulny – Willis
Reddox - Brule - Stone
Bekar - McDonald - Corazzini
Lefebvre - Spurgeon - Sestito
Chorney - Gabinet
Taylor - Peckham
Roy - Young
Dubnyk
Fisher
FALCONS SCRATCHES – Viacheslav Trukhno (Injured), Stephane Goulet (Healthy), Ryan O'Marra (Healthy), Cody Wild (Healthy), Hans Benson (Healthy), Rob Schremp (Flu)
THREE STARS
1) Ryan Vesce - Worcester (1 Goal, 2 Assists)
2) Mathieu Roy - Springfield (1 Goal, 1 Assist)
3) Patrick Traverse - Worcester (1 Goal, 2 Assists)
GAME NOTES
Falcons defenseman Taylor Chorney left the game in the first period with an upper body injury and did not return. Chorney skated off under his own power and is day-to-day.
Ryan Vesce's overtime goal was not only his 4th overtime tally of the season but also his 7th game winning goal. Vesce has scored 15 goals this season for Worcester. Vesce is the captain of the Sharks and he will represent Worcester at the AHL All-Star Game. Vesce was an All-Star with Springfield during the 2005-06 season.
GAME NIGHT NOTES………………
GAME SETUP: The Springfield Falcons and Worcester Sharks meet for the fourth time this season when they get together on Friday night at the MassMutual Center. This will only be the Sharks second visit to Springfield this year with Worcester beating Springfield 3-0 back on November 16. Worcester beat Springfield in overtime by a score of 3-2 in the most recent match-up back on December 10. Two of the three games in the season series have been shutouts with the Falcons blanking the Sharks 2-0 back on November 11.
Derek Bekar leads the Falcons in goals against the Sharks with two markers, and he is also tied with Tyler Spurgeon (0g, 2a) for the team lead in points against Worcester. Falcons goaltender Devan Dubnyk has a 1.99 goals against average and .946 save percentage in three games against Worcester this year.
The Sharks have five players all tied for the club lead in scoring against the Falcons with T.J. Fox (2g,0a), Jamie McGinn (1g,1a), Ryan Vesce (1g,1a), Riley Armstrong (0g,2a), and Jason Demers (0g,2a) all tied with two points each. Goaltender Taylor Dakers is a perfect 2-0 with a 0.99 goals against average and .956 save percentage in two games against Springfield.
The Falcons head into Friday’s action having won three of their last four games and have improved their record to 16-21-5-1 good for 38 points. Springfield is only three points behind sixth place Manchester and six points behind fifth place Lowell. The Falcons will host the Providence Bruins on Saturday night before heading into the All-Star Break.
The Sharks skate into Springfield having earned at least a point in their last three games going 2-0-0-1 in that span. Worcester has a record of 4-1-0-1 in their last six games and they have improved their overall record to 23-18-0-2 on the season good for 48 points and third place in the Atlantic Division. The Sharks will head to Lowell on Saturday before the DCU Center hosts the AHL Skills Competition on Sunday and AHL All-Star Game on Monday.
BUSY WEEK OF TRANSACTIONS: The Springfield Falcons announced Tuesday the Edmonton Oilers have assigned forwards Gilbert Brule and Liam Reddox to the Falcons. Brule has appeared in 11 games with the Oilers this season scoring two goals and an assist with 12 penalty minutes. He scored his first career Oilers goal versus St. Louis on January 11th and then registered his first multiple point game of the season with the game-winning goal and an assist in the Oilers 5-2 win at Washington on January 13th. The 5’10”, 180 pound native of Edmonton was third on the Falcons scoring list at the time of his recall to the Oilers on December 31st. He has scored 11-5-16 with 34 penalty minutes in 19 games with Edmonton’s AHL affiliate and was second in goals, while being tied for the team lead with six power play goals.
Reddox has scored 3-2-5 with eight penalty minutes in 23 games with Edmonton this season. Recalled from Springfield on November 14th, he scored his first career NHL point with a goal versus Colorado on November 15th. The 5’10”, 180 pound forward from Whitby, Ontario appeared in 12 games with Springfield earlier this season and netted 5-4-9 with two penalty minutes.
The Falcons also announced this week that they have assigned forward Geoff Paukovich and defenseman Josef Hrabal to their ECHL affiliate, the Stockton Thunder and assigned forward Kelly Czuy to the ECHL’s Las Vegas Wranglers.
WORCESTER PLAYER STREAKS:
• Worcester defenseman Patrick Traverse has points in two straight games collecting one goal and three assists in that span.
• Steven Zalewski has points in two straight games posting one goal and one assist.
• Ryan Vesce has points in 11 straight games collecting six goals and 10 assists in that span.
• Jamie McGinn has goals in back-to-back games and he is also on a three-game scoring streak.
