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ECHL Cincinnati Cyclones

Cyclones Use 'Extra' Special Teams In 2-1 Win

February 21, 2009 - ECHL (ECHL)
Cincinnati Cyclones News Release


CINCINNATI, Ohio - A power play goal and a shorthanded score helped propel the Cincinnati Cyclones to a 2-1 win over the Dayton Bombers on Saturday night. The win pushed the Cyclones two points ahead of Johnstown for the North Division lead.

Dayton opened the scoring when rookie Nino Musitelli fired a shot from the right wing that eluded Ryan Nie. The goal at 7:00 was assisted by Christian Gaudet and Greg Labenski. At 14:01 of the period Cincinnati had a two-man advantage for a full two minutes but was unable to capitalize on the opportunity. The shots on goal favored Dayton, 8-7, in the opening 20 minutes.

The Cyclones knotted the scores with a power play goal in the second period. Mike Salekin teed up a shot from the blueline and blew it past David Shantz at 7:27 from Dustin Sproat and Mark Van Guilder. The shots on goal favored Cincinnati, 13-7, in the period. Cincinnati had another two-man advantage for more than a half a minute but could not capitalize.

A shorthanded goal by Ben Gordon 10:52 into the third period broke the deadlock and gave the Cyclones the victory. Gordon's 13th goal was a two-on-one break with Mark Van Guilder. Van Guilder took a loose puck in the Cincinnati end and led the break into the Dayton end-pushing the puck into the slot for Gordon's game winner. It was his third game winning goal of the season. The shots on goal favored the Bombers, 11-5, in the period and 26-25 for the game.

It was the tenth come-from-behind win this season for Cincinnati and the second in as many nights.

Ryan Nie took the victory, stopping 25 shots in picking up his 18th win of the season. David Shantz took the defeat, turning aside 23 shots. Cincinnati was one-for-eight on the power play, while Dayton was zero-for-five with the man-advantage.

With the crowd of 6525, the Cyclones are averaging 28.9 percent more fans than 2007-08 through 26 home games. That is the largest improvement from last year through 26 games of any professional hockey team in North America (Tulsa-CHL is up 28.3% to rank second). Last year, Cincinnati's season attendance improved 36.8 percent over 2006-07-the biggest increase in all of professional hockey. The Cyclones are averaging 2928 per game, having welcomed 76,152 fans this season.

The 6525 was the third-largest Cyclones crowd at U.S. Bank Arena this season.

The Cyclones are now 30-19-5 on the season, while Dayton is 25-25-5. The Cyclones host Reading on Tuesday and Wednesday night at U.S. Bank Arena. Tickets for each game are available for ten dollars each. Next Friday and Saturday, Elmira visits for the final time in the regular season.

The game was the 14th of 15 regular season meetings between the teams with the Cyclones having a 10-2-2 record. Only a Wednesday, March 25 game at Dayton remains in the season series. This was the 73rd meeting in the regular season between the teams with Cincinnati having a 46-20-7 mark.

Tickets for the 2008-09 Cincinnati Cyclones season are now on sale. The Cyclones Sales Department can be reached at 513-421-PUCK, extension 3. For the latest news, notes and information on the team, visit: www.cycloneshockey.com . Ask about the Family Four Pack (four tickets, four hot dogs, four Pepsis, four Cyclones winter hats, four public skate passes at SportsPlus and a SportsPlus game card) for just $69!

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The opinions expressed in this release are those of the organization issuing it, and do not necessarily reflect the thoughts or opinions of OurSports Central or its staff.

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