Keller, Seals Avenge Opening Night Loss
October 28, 2006 - SPHL (SPHL)
Florida Seals News Release
KISSIMMEE, Fla. - 24 hours prior, the Florida Seals hockey team looked like they hadn't gotten the wake-up call to start the 2006-2007 season.
Consider them now fully awake.
Led by Justin Keller's hat trick and solid goaltending by rookie Matt Balsar, the Seals avenged their opening night loss by blasting the Huntsville Havoc 7-1 at the Silver Spurs Arena.
"We though we could get out there last night and just put the skates on and play," Seals Coach Tommy Stewart said. "Tonight we played with emotion. We played with passion, energy and character. It definitely got across tonight."
The first period was controlled for the most part by the Seals but featured more officials' conferences than a business convention. The first came when a shot by Florida's Keller went high on Huntsville goalie Matt Carmichael, clanked iron and quickly came out. After conferring with the goal judge who had lit the light and his linesmen, referee Mike Hughes signaled goal.
Four minutes later, Huntsville's Chris Nichols thought he had beaten Balsar but no light went on and the resulting conversation resulted in a no goal call. Havoc Coach John Gibson was clearly not happy with the call and his frustration grew 46 seconds later when Keller scored his second of the night. Rob Sich appeared to have scored early in the sequence, grabbing a rebound and having a wide open net to fire at. Somehow the puck stayed out and Keller jumped on the loose puck and poked it in. Florida's lead ballooned to three 24 seconds into the second when Kahlil Thomas took the puck behind the Huntsville net and beat Carmichael back to the post for a pretty wraparound score. The Havoc broke Balsar's shutout at the 3:38 mark when on a power play, Bill Monkman grabbed a rebound and out-waited Balsar, finally finding room to beat the young net minder.
Sich got that one back two minutes later on a Seals' man advantage. Brett Larson laid a perfect pass to Sich who launched a laser guided ICBM past Carmichael. Before the end of the stanza, Craig Miller added yet another power play goal, pushing the Seal's lead to 5-1.
As the lead grew, tempers began to fray. Florida's Billy Rochefort and Huntsville's Luke Phillips dropped the gloves. Later, Seals' captain Steve Zoryk took on Justin Schmit in a heavyweight tussle.
The third period was plagued by penalties and things nearly got out of hand. After being decked in the corner, Sich skated back toward the bench. As he did, he ran into a Huntsville player who steered him into the Havoc bench and it was on. Six players, five from Huntsville, received penalties from the fracas.
The Seals decided they hadn't finished scoring quite yet. With just under two minutes left, Keller took a breakaway feed from Billy Rochefort and double faked Carmichael to score on the backhand for the hatter. 25 seconds later, Craig Miller broke away and fired the puck home for the final goal of the night.
"It feels good, especially coming off a loss like we did last night, " Keller said. "We knew we had to forget about it and come out and just rebound and give it our all for sixty minutes."
Frustrations spilled over in the final minute as several fights broke out. The feature match occurred when Chad Wilcox of Huntsville squared off with Florida's Chad Haacke. Haacke held his own and landed several solid shots.
"A lot of the guys answered the bell who don't fight," Stewart said of his team not backing down. "I'm very, very proud of Rochefort, (Seth) Gray and Haacke who took on one of the heavyweights of the league and got him pretty good."
The Seals return to the Silver Spurs Arena this Friday when they take on the Jacksonville Barracudas at 7:35 P.M.
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SPHL Stories from October 28, 2006
- Keller, Seals Avenge Opening Night Loss - Florida Seals
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