ECHL Bakersfield Condors

Hofstrand electrifies crowd in OT loss to Gulls

November 18, 2005 - ECHL (ECHL)
Bakersfield Condors News Release


BAKERSFIELD, Calif. - Mike Hofstrand's short- handed goal pushed the Condors to overtime, but Steve Hildenbrand's game-winner with 29.7 seconds left in the extra period gave the San Diego Gulls a 4- 3 victory over Bakersfield Thursday night in front of 4,390 fans at the Rabobank Arena.

San Diego (4-5-2) would strike first as Martin Mandeville took a pass in the slot from Pierre-Luc Sleigher and one-timed it past Ryan Munce's right side to give San Diego an early 1-0 lead just left in the first period. The Gulls failed to put a shot on net in the final 12 minutes of the period as the Condors (3-4-3) faced 3 unique power play chances, including a 5-on-3 late in the frame.

The Gulls doubled their lead in the second period as Steve Hildenbrand fired a shot over the right pad of Munce from the slot just over seven minutes into the second period.

Four minutes later, the Condors would strike as Scott Borders led an attack on the left wing and connected with Kevin St. Jacques over the glove of San Diego netminder Tom Lawson to put Bakersfield on the board. St. Jacques extended his point streak to five games on the goal to cut San Diego's lead to 2-1 with under 9 minutes remaining.

At 17:07 of the second, Dennis Shiryaev tied the game as he took a pass from Alexandre Bolduc from the right-side circle. Shiryaev buried the puck past an airborne Lawson for his first goal of the season as the Condors tied it at 2-2.

San Diego answered back on the power play with 40 seconds remaining in the period as Guillaume Fournier dropped a pass to Nikita Korovkin in the slot, who wrested it under Munce's right arm to regain the lead for the Gulls at 3-2 heading into the third period.

On the penalty kill in the third period, Mike Hofstrand led a well-executed attack and deflected a shot from Scott Basiuk to tie the game at 3-3 with 7:09 left in regulation.

In the overtime, San Diego would go on the power play on a Scott Balan interference penalty with 1:58 remaining until a shootout. Grady Moore tossed a puck on the 4-on-3 towards the net, and Hildenbrand poked it under Munce to give the Gulls the overtime win with 29.7 seconds left on the clock.

Tom Lawson picked up the victory stopping 34 of 37 Condor shots. Ryan Munce received the loss, despite making 23 saves on 27 shots.

Kevin St. Jacques was awarded first star honors, and Dennis Shiryaev was named second star.

The Condors head south to San Diego to take on the Gulls at the iPayOne Center tomorrow night at 7:35pm. The following night, November 19th, the Condors return home to host the Long Beach Ice Dogs at 7:00pm. The Condors will be sporting unique Bakersfield-themed jerseys as part of the team's first Jersey Raffle & Auction of the season. 5 lucky fans will win their own game-worn jerseys from the evening, and the rest will be distributed through a post-game auction following the Condors/Ice Dogs matchup.

Check out the Bakersfield Condors Statistics



ECHL Stories from November 18, 2005


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.

OurSports Central