IceGators Jump the Checkers 4-1
March 10, 2004 - ECHL (ECHL)
Louisiana IceGators News Release
Charlotte, NC - The Louisiana IceGators continued their extended road trip tonight with a 4-1 victory over the Charlotte Checkers (30-24-7) tonight in North Carolina. The IceGators (43-16-2) earned their 43rd win of the year and are leading the Central Division by 11 points over their closest competitor.
The Checkers started the scoring in the first period when Rory Rowlyk caught the puck at the blue line and blasted it through traffic to beat Gustafson top-shelf. David St. Germain kept the Gators off the scoreboard for the first 20 minutes.
The IceGators outshot the Checkers 16-4 in the second period and the effort paid off with two goals. Just past the halfway mark of the middle frame, Josh Bennet scored his first goal as an IceGator, with assistance from Alex Materukhin and Derek Gustafson.
Materukhin caught the puck at center ice when Gustafson stopped an icing. Materukhin skated into the Checkers' zone from center ice and fed the puck to Bennett who flicked a backhanded wrister past St. Germain.
With less than a minute left in the period, Maxime Fortunus pick-pocketed the puck from the Checkers at his own blue line. He skated all the way in on St. Germain and fired the puck into the twine for his third goal of the year and the eventual game-winner.
The third period saw two more goals from the IceGators and 20 more minutes of shutout time for Derek Gustafson.
Konstantin Kalmikov continued to make up for the time he lost to injury when he scored two goals in ten minutes to cap the game for the IceGators. Kalmikov is also just the third IceGator to score more than 20 goals this season.
Kalmikov's 20th goal came on a feed from Rod Sarich that beat St. Germain five-hole and gave the Gators a two-goal lead. His 21st lamp-lighter crossed the line the same way, slipping through the leg pads of the Checkers goaltender and sealing the fate of the team from Charlotte.
Derek Gustafson faced 21 shots from the Checkers, with 12 of them fired at him during the first period. The Gators only got eight shots off in the first period, but made up for it in the second by doubling that number. The finished the game by scoring on two of their six shots in the third.
The IceGators will stay in Charlotte to face-off with the Checkers again on Friday at 6:30 p.m. The will head down to Charleston for a match-up with the South Carolina Stingrays on Saturday at 6:30 p.m.
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