Ellis backstops Iowa to victory
January 23, 2007 - American Hockey League (AHL)
Iowa Chops News Release
DES MOINES, IA - The Iowa Stars and the Chicago Wolves met for the third time at Wells Fargo Arena and the seventh time overall during the 2006-2007 season. The Stars snapped a five-game winless streak with a 3-2 shootout win over the Western Conference's first place Wolves.
For the first time in five games, the Iowa Stars notched the game's first goal. Taking a pass from Joel Lundqvist, who was behind the goal-line, Junior Lessard notched his team-leading 16th goal of the season when the puck squirted through Chicago netminder Michael Garnett. Janos Vas extended his points-streak to five games with an assist on the goal that came 6:48 into the opening period. Chicago's Darren Haydar evened the score at one when he pounced on a loose puck that was initially stopped by Iowa netminder Dan Ellis and trickled behind him. Haydar's power-play goal came with 4:30 left. The Wolves grabbed a 2-1 lead with exactly one minute left in the period when Mark Popovic's shot from the right point deflected off an Iowa blueliner and into his own goal.
The Stars picked-up the equalizing goal thanks to some hard-nosed work in the corners by Yared Hagos and John Lammers, though neither one of them will show-up in the scoring line of the scoresheet. The game-tying goal belonged to Francis Wathier with assists to Mark Fistric and Mark Ardelan. Wathier redirected the Fistric shot past Garnett at the 8:01 mark of the middle stanza. Iowa had several chances to gain the lead including breakaways by Lundqvist, Steve Ott and Marty Wilford all within a two-minute span but were unable to do so. Iowa out-shot the Wolves 13 to five in the period.
The Wolves carried the majority of the play for the third period but Dan Ellis stood his ground and helped Iowa force overtime with the Western Conference's first place team. Ellis stopped all 11 shots in the third frame.
After a back-and-forth five-minute sudden-death overtime period, the Stars and Wolves headed to the shootout. This was Iowa's second shootout in the last seven days. Vojtech Polak, Lundqvist and Lessard scored in the shootout while Ellis blanked all three Chicago shooters to end the five round shootout after three.
Ellis finished with 27 saves and was named the Number Two Stars of the Game.
Shots: IOWA: 30; CHICAGO: 29; Attendance: 3,278
Game Sheet - http://stats.theahl.com/stats/game-summary.php?game_id=1002817
IOWA STARS INFO: The Stars travel to Milwaukee to play the Admirals on Thursday night and then travel down to Peoria, Illinois to face the Rivermen on Friday night. Iowa returns home to host these same Wolves again on Saturday, January 23rd. Wells Fargo Arena game time is 7:00 PM. Saturday is All-Star poster giveaway night. The first 2,000 fans will receive a poster of Iowa Stars AHL All-Star Joel Lundqvist. Stick around after the game and have Joel sign your poster! Doors open for all home games one hour before face-off. Bring a group or hold your child's birthday at a Stars game! All ticketing information can be obtained by calling 515-23-STARS or by visiting IowaStarsHockey.com.
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