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Louisiana game notes at Pensacola

November 14, 2002 - ECHL (ECHL)
Louisiana IceGators News Release


IceGators at Ice Pilots – Louisiana looks to continue its recent success against Pensacola tonight, as the IceGators have won six of the last seven meetings. In addition, the IceGators have won 10 of the last 12 meetings and are 14-3-0 in the last 17 contests against the Ice Pilots. Louisiana is 33-13-2 all-time against Pensacola, including a 15-8-1 mark on the road. The IceGators are 6-3-0 in their last nine trips to Pensacola. Louisiana won the last meeting on March 19 in Pensacola, a 4-2 victory, after dropping a 4-3 decision there on February 16.

Wednesday night – Bobby Brown scored two goals and added an assist, and Kyle Kettles turned aside a career-best 29 shots, as the shortstaffed Louisiana IceGators snapped the Jackson Bandits' five-game winning streak with an impressive 4-1 win at Mississippi Coliseum. Daniel Goneau and Shawn Skiehar also scored, J.P. Morin had a pair of assists – his first points as an IceGator – and Kenny Corupe chipped in with two helpers for Louisiana, which played without three players. Captain Bruce Richardson and two others were suspended from an incident in the penalty box on Sunday. The IceGators won their second straight and are unbeaten in regulation in three games (2-0-1).

Scouting the Ice Pilots – Having snapped a three-game winless streak (0-2-1) with a 3-2 shootout win in Baton Rouge on Saturday, Pensacola looks to string together back-to-back wins for the first time since October 12 and 13, the first two games of the season. The Ice Pilots enter tonight's game 4-4-3 for 11 points, with their last two wins coming in overtime or a shootout. Saturday against the Kingfish, Greg Baumgartner and Scott Hewson each had a goal and an assist in regulation before Maxime Gingras turned aside four of five shots in the shootout to help preserve the win. Pensacola, which last season ranked third in the Southern Conference in scoring, is tied for 24th in the ECHL in offense averaging 2.36 goals per game. The Ice Pilots are ranked just 22nd in power play percentage (13.3 percent), but have enjoyed much success on the penalty kill, ranking second with a 92.4 percentage. Pensacola is led, not surprisingly, by center Louis Dumont and right wing Greg Pankewicz. Dumont, a former IceGator, was an All-ECHL First Team selection last season and has a hand in 13 (3g, 10a) of Pensacola's 26 goals this season. Pankewicz leads the team with six goals despite playing in just seven games. It's still taking some time, apparently, for the rest of the Ice Pilots to gel after an off-season that saw a lot of player movement. Former Mobile Mystick Josh Harrold leads the defensive corps with eight points (1g, 7a). The diminutive Gingras is a mainstay in net for Pensacola, having played in all but one of the Ice Pilots' games. Gingras, who would regularly play 15 straight games last season, is 3-3-3 with a more than respectable 2.49 goals against average. His backup is Brown product Brian Eklund, who lasted just one period in a 7-2 home loss to Greenville last week.

He shoots, he scores – Shawn McNeil doesn't just lead the ECHL in goals with 12, he also is tops on the circuit with 78 shots. McNeil has 872 shots in his IceGators career, 37 shy of tying John Spoltore for third place all time on the team's list. McNeil has played in just 216 games, and it took Spoltore 341 to get his 899.

Offense picking back up – The IceGators had failed to reach the three-goal plateau in five games before back-to-back four-goal games Sunday and Wednesday.

Getting stingy – Louisiana has allowed just one goal in each of its last two games. The last time the IceGators went three straight games without allowing two goals in any of them was from November 25-29, 2001. Louisiana beat Arkansas 4-0, New Orleans 3-0 and Arkansas 5-1 in that stretch. Frederic Cloutier made 31 saves in the win over the Brass.

Magic number is four – The IceGators haven't won a game this season when they've scored less than four goals (0-4-2), but they are 8-0-0 when putting four or more goals on the board.

‘Gators do their thing in second period – Louisiana has outscored its opponents 21-8 in the second period this season, and goaltender Frederic Cloutier especially has stepped up his play in the stanza. Cloutier has stopped 96 of 102 shots in the second period this season for a .945 save percentage.

Road streak snapped – The IceGators snapped their five-game road winless streak (0-3-2) Wednesday to keep from setting a new franchise record. The only other time that the IceGators were winless in five straight road games was from October 19-November 26, 1996, when they had to forfeit those games.

McNeil climbing the ranks – Shawn McNeil's hot pace has him passing former players on the team's all-time lists with every game. McNeil's 106 goals with the team are the fifth most in history, and he's just 11 goals behind Don Parsons for fourth. If McNeil keeps up his current streak, it may not take him long to get there.

McNeil leads all ECHL goal scorers, since 2000-01 – Shawn McNeil has more goals than any other ECHL player since the beginning of the 2000-01 season. McNeil has 80 goals, four more than former teammate Jay Murphy.

Letting opponent get the head start – The IceGators have allowed their opponent to score the game's first goal in nine of their last 11 games and 10 overall. Last season, Louisiana failed to score first in just 19 games.

Penalty kill does just that – Louisiana has killed off 16 straight power plays since allowing a man-advantage goal early in Sunday's 4-1 win over Greenville. The IceGators killed off the final 10 chances against the Grrrowl, and Jackson didn't get a power-play goal in six attempts Wednesday.

Goneau streaking – Left wing Daniel Goneau has seven points (4g, 3a) in his current four-game point streak, and he has at least one goal in his last three games, with four tallies in that span. Goneau's longest goal streak of his career is five, from October 10-20, 1996, with the New York Rangers. With an assist tonight, Goneau will match his longest assist streak of his career at three games.

Richardson on seven-game point streak – Bruce Richardson's point streak is up to seven games, a new career-best. The streak, which started with a four-helper game on October 27 against Jackson, includes 11 points (3g, 8a). Richardson has a point in all but two games this season.

Quick hits:

Shawn McNeil has points in 19 of the IceGators' last 21 games, dating to last season.

Shawn McNeil has scored Louisiana's first goal in seven of 14 games. Six of his 12 goals have given the IceGators a lead.

The IceGators went 0-for-2 on the power play Wednesday, the first time they've had less than five opportunities with the man advantage this season.

Three of Dennis Shiryaev's nine goals in the 2001-02 season came against Pensacola.

Shawn McNeil (7g, 6a) and Kevin Mitchell (1g, 12a) lead the IceGators with 13 special teams points apiece.

Kenny Corupe's second assist Wednesday was the 50th of his pro career.

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