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Gulls one point away from clinching conference

March 29, 2004 - ECHL (ECHL)
San Diego Gulls News Release


SAN DIEGO –– One thing was taken care of last week... the Pacific Division. But there are still a couple of tasks Steve Martinson is looking to take care of. One... clinching the Western Conference, which the San Diego Gulls can do with just one more point. Second... the best overall record in the ECHL. The Gulls will need some help if they want to attain that, but it's certainly not out of reach.

San Diego began its week Wednesday with another win over the Long Beach Ice Dogs. The Gulls then went to Boise, Idaho and swept a two-game series against the third-place Steelheads.

With the 3-0-0 record last week, the Gulls have clinched the Pacific Division. San Diego leads the Louisiana IceGators by four points for the top spot in the Western Conference. Any combination of a Gulls win or overtime/shootout loss or a Louisiana regulation or overtime/shootout loss will clinch the Western Conference for the Blue and Orange. Overall in the ECHL, San Diego has the second-best record, trailing the Wheeling Nailers by four points. The Gulls have two games in hand on Wheeling, but the Nailers hold the tiebreaker.

WEEK IN REVIEW:

March 23 vs. Long Beach:

San Diego's dominance over the Ice Dogs continued Wednesday with a 5-3 win over its Southern California rival. Newcomer Scott Kirton picked up two goals and an assist, while Sylvain Deschatelets chipped in with three helpers, helping the Gulls stretch their unbeaten streak over Long Beach to 23 games. The Ice Dogs had a 3-1 lead midway through the second period, but the Blue and Orange took over from there, bagging four unanswered goals.

March 26 @ Idaho:

Clayton Read scored twice while rookie Evgueni Nourislamov tallied a career-high three assists, leading the Blue and Orange to a 4-2 whitewashing of the Steelheads. The Gulls grabbed a 2-0 lead before Idaho's Jeff Bateman cut it in half with a short-handed tally late in the second. Moments later, Lance Galbraith took advantage of a turnover and tied the score, 2-2. Read, however, tallied the game-winner early in the third before Deschatelets put it away with an empty-netter.

March 27 @ Idaho:

The Gulls clinched the Pacific Division and finished their two-game sweep of Idaho with a 3-1 win Saturday night. This time the Steelheads struck first early in the game, but San Diego came right back with two of its own, going ahead 2-1. Both teams went into a defensive zone the remainder of the game, which was just fine with the Gulls. Deschatelets again sealed the win with an empty-netter, extending his point streak to 22 games.

THIS WEEK:

The Gulls close out the regular season with four games this week. They play in Fresno Monday at 7 p.m. before hosting Las Vegas Wednesday at 7:05 p.m. San Diego goes to Bakersfield for a 7 p.m. affair against the Condors Friday and comes right back home to face the Alaska Aces Saturday at 7:05 p.m.

PLAYER NOTES:

Deschatelets is in the midst of an ECHL season-high 22-game point streak. He has 35 points during that span (13g, 22a). The Gulls' franchise record for longest point streak is 26 games, set by Kyle Reeves in 1997-98. The ECHL record for longest point streak is 38 games, set by Trevor Jobe in 1992-93... Trevor Koenig is unbeaten in 24 of his last 26 games (18-2-6)... Read has five points (4g, 1a) in his last three games... Samy Nasreddine now has a career-high 10 goals... The Gulls have three players in the American Hockey League: Billy Tibbetts (Houston Aeros), Nick Lent (Springfield Falcons) and Josh Gratton (Cincinnati Mighty Ducks)... Dennis Purdie remains on the injured list...

TEAM NOTES:

San Diego needs just one more victory to tie the 1991-92 Toledo Storm for the ECHL record for wins by an expansion team... The Gulls are unbeaten in 14 of their last 15 games (10-1-4) and 44 of their last 50 games (36-6-8)... San Diego is 41-10-5 against Pacific Division teams...

All games can be heard live* on KPOP 1360AM and www.sandiegogulls.com with Chris Ello calling the play-by-play. The next edition of the Gulls Internet Radio show, hosted by Tera Black and Jeremy Zager on wsRadio.com, will air live Monday, April 5 from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. To view pictures from this season, visit www.sdgullsphotos.com and www.zerodogentertainment.com.

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