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CHL Colorado Eagles

Blazers score 4 in third for 5-4 comeback win

February 1, 2008 - Central Hockey League (CHL)
Colorado Eagles News Release


OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla. - The Oklahoma City Blazers scored three unanswered goals in the final period to top the Colorado Eagles 5-4. Sebastien Laplante got his first start as an Eagle, facing off against the Blazers' Sean Connors, and he performed much better than the five goals against would lead one to believe. The Eagles had the game in control until a third period meltdown resulted in three Blazers goals in just over three minutes.

Laplante didn't get his Colorado career off to the kind of start he wanted, allowing a goal on the very first shot he faced less than two minutes into the game. The Blazers won the faceoff in the left-wing circle of the offensive zone, but the ensuing shot from the point never made it to through the mass of bodies still in the circle. Ryan Watson then dug it out, spun and fired a shot that beat Laplante up high. But Laplante stopped the next 12 shots he faced, making a handful of big saves - two huge ones on the penalty kill. The Eagles tied the game at one at 5:07 (with the teams skating four-on-four) when Ed McGrane skated the puck down the right side of the ice before back-handing a pass from the circle to Greg Pankewicz who was crashing the net. The assist was McGrane's 37th of the season, moving him past Pankewicz and into the team lead.

Colorado's special teams struck twice in the second to make it a 3-1 game. At 8:47, during their third penalty kill of the period, Seth Leonard scored on a breakaway; Leonard broke free and fought through a hook in the low slot before chipping the puck past Connors. With 71 seconds left in the period it was the power play's turn to score a goal as Les Borsheim tallied his seventh goal of the year from the right faceoff dot to torment his former team.

In the third, DJ Jelitto made it 2-3 for the Blazers with a power play goal at 4:03, scoring the first of four Oklahoma City goals in the final frame. Laplante delayed the inevitable halfway through the period when he kept the Eagles in the lead by stoning the Blazers on two more power play chances - first with a splits-save and then by recovering to snuff a wraparound chance. Just moments later, he made another big save that resulted in a Colorado goal as the play went the other way. Brad Williamson scored at 10:27 from Aaron Schneekloth to put the Eagles up 4-2.

Oklahoma City just kept coming, however, and Marty Standish got the goal right back at 11:42 on a short-handed breakaway. Standish rushed down the left-wing boards, cut across the low slot to get Laplante moving right-to-left, and deposited the puck 5-hole. A minute later, the game was tied after a defensive breakdown; Mike Burgoyne passed the puck from behind the net to a wide open Garret Prosofsky on the doorstep. Burgoyne had a hand in the game-winning goal as well. At 14:58, Michael Kaye - fighting through an Eagles defenseman - swooped in and swept a Burgoyne rebound past Laplante from below the left circle. The goal came on the Blazers' tenth power play of the night and gave them the lead at 5-4.

The third period meltdown marked the second time all year - and the second game in a row - that the Eagles have scored four goals and lost. It was also the first time all season that the Eagles lost a game after leading heading into the third period (now 16-1-3); all-time, Colorado is now 156-5-7 in such cases. Colorado fell to 2-2 on their five-game road trip that ends in Texas Saturday night.

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