Aces Royally Flush Roadrunners 5-0

by Andrew Nordmeier
January 6, 2006 - ECHL (ECHL)
Phoenix RoadRunners


Joe Talbot's four-point night keyed the Alaska Aces to a 5-0 thumping over the Phoenix Roadrunners Thursday night in the final event at America West Arena.

Talbot scored the game's first goal, a power-play strike in the first period and assisted on three more to pull Alaska (23-4-3) within two points of Las Vegas for first place in the division and the league. Phoenix (9-19-2) lost its sixth straight game and found themselves trailing 3-0 for the fourth game in a row.

Alaska scored three of its five goals on the power play and shots finished 30-29 in favor of Phoenix. The Roadrunners were shutout for the fifth time this season.

"This was the sharpest our power play looked in quite sometime," Alaska Head Coach Davis Payne said, "We're obviously really pleased with that."

Talbot's wrist shot found the back of the net behind Phoenix netminder Michael Mole at 5:42 as it deflected off of the post and past Mole on the stick side for his fourth goal of the season.

In the second period, Ryan Ramsey's third of the year at 37 seconds gave Alaska a back-breaking goal. He took a Talbot feed and beat Mole who was caught leaning the wrong way.

Davis said the goal was huge because of the momentum shift it generated and it was a deflating scenario for the Roadrunners as they just killed off a penalty and the Aces scored right after it expired.

Mike Scott beat Mole at 6:58 of the middle period to make it 3-0 with his slap shot. Corbin Schmidt's first professional goal at 3:31 and Vladimir Novak's power-play goal at 15:11 of the third period closed out the scoring.

Chris Beckford-Tseu stopped all 30 Phoenix shots for his second shutout of the season and raises his record to 10-0-2. Mole is saddled with another loss and drops to 5-14-2.

Phoenix doesn't get much time to make changes and their next opponent isn't any easier. The Roadrunners travel to Las Vegas to take on the Wranglers Friday night at the Orleans Arena. Las Vegas is currently the first-place team in the ECHL when it comes to points in the standings.

Three Stars

3. Ramsay-AK Goal and two assists

2. Shasby-AK Three assists

1. Talbot-AK Goal and three assists

Notes: Phoenix found out forward Jason Deskins will be sidelined at least six weeks but probably longer after suffering a grade three concussion on New Year's Day against Fresno...Alaska played without top scorer Chris Minard (25g, 13a) as he was recalled to the Albany River Rats of the AHL earlier today...Alaska also was missing defenseman Ryan Gaucher (high ankle sprain)...Phoenix played without defenseman Brent Henley as he was serving the first of a two-game suspension for elbowing a Fresno's Casey Muench and drawing a major penalty on New Year's Day...To compensate for the lack of defensemen, Joe Dusbabek and Mike Ouellette moved back to the blue line...Alaska is tied with Johnstown for the most first goals in the ECHL with 21...The Aces are 15-0-0 when leading after a period and 19-0-0 when leading after two; Phoenix is 0-17-0 when trailing after 40 minutes ...Attendance was 3,278.



ECHL Stories from January 6, 2006


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