Louisiana game notes vs. Baton Rouge, 11/22

November 22, 2002 - ECHL (ECHL)
Louisiana IceGators News Release


Kingfish at IceGators – Tonight, Baton Rouge looks for its second straight regulation win against Louisiana for the first time in five seasons. The Kingfish, who beat the IceGators at the Riverside Centroplex 3-1 on October 26 for their last win this season, last took two straight in regulation over Louisiana on November 29 and December 26, 1997. The October 26 win, which featured a pair of goals by Clark Jones in the opening minutes, snapped the IceGators' 10-game unbeaten in regulation streak (9-0-1) in the series. The odds aren't exactly in Baton Rouge's favor to make it two straight. The IceGators are 19-1-4 in the last 24 home meetings with Baton Rouge. The Kingfish last won at the Cajundome on February 16, 2001, and that was first last win in Lafayette since December 26, 1997. The IceGators are 38-17-7 all-time against Baton Rouge, including a 20-6-5 mark at the Cajundome.

Tuesday night – Louis Mass scored his first pro goal in his 77th game with 5:21 left in the third period and Frederic Cloutier made an acrobatic 26 saves, as the Louisiana IceGators beat the Mississippi Sea Wolves 2-1 at Mississippi Coast Coliseum. Bobby Brown also scored for the IceGators, who pulled even with the Sea Wolves for second place in the Southwest Division. Louisiana, which killed off a big 5-on-3 just before Mass' goal, won for the third time in four games and improved to 3-1-1 in its last five. The IceGators rebounded from Friday's 6-1 loss in Pensacola, their worst loss since the 2000-01 season. Sean Matile turned aside 22 shots and Cody Bowtell scored for Mississippi, which finished 0-for-6 on the power play. The Sea Wolves have converted just 1-of-27 attempts with the man advantage against the IceGators this season.

Scouting the Kingfish – Baton Rouge is 3-11-3 for nine points, the worst record in the ECHL. The Kingfish are winless (0-7-3) in their last 10 games since a 3-1 win over Louisiana on October 26, tying a franchise record set from January 25-February 11, 1995, when the franchise was in Erie. Six of the games during the streak were at the friendly confines of the Centroplex. The Kingfish have scored more than three goals in the stretch just once, and are averaging 1.67 goals in the past three games. Tuesday, Baton Rouge spotted Jackson with a 4-0 lead and its comeback fell just short, 4-3. Sean Peach scored his first two goals of the season, including one with the extra attacker with 43 seconds left, and Trevor Wasyluk – who retired yesterday due to bad knees to become a railroad conductor – also scored for Baton Rouge. Jeff Blair made 24 saves in his sixth straight start since the release of Paxton Schafer. The Kingfish played Tuesday without veteran defenseman Steve Cheredaryk (2g, 7a) and third-leading scorer Wes Scanzano (5g, 5a), and both players will miss tonight's game as well. Baton Rouge did get Bryan Richardson and Trevor Demmans back from injured reserve, though. Clark Jones (6g, 7a) leads the Kingfish with 13 points, while Glenn Crawford (3g, 9a), Richardson (6g, 4a), Peach (2g, 8a) and Scanzano each have 10. Blair, who made 36 saves in the 3-1 Kingfish win over the IceGators in October for his only win of the season, is 1-7-3 with a respectable 2.87 goals against average and a .911 save percentage. The Kingfish, though, are averaging just 2.00 goals per came in Blair's starts. After releasing Schafer, Baton Rouge re-signed Brian Leitza, who had been playing with the Cardiff Devils in England. Leitza was 19-18-7 with a 3.17 goals against average and a .914 save percentage with the Kingfish last season.

Looking to jump back into first – The IceGators, who haven't been out of first this late in the season since December 20, 2000, have a chance tonight to get back into a tie for first since November 1, a span of 21 days. Louisiana was 6-1-0 that day, tied with Mississippi for first place. The IceGators need Arkansas to lose in regulation at home to Arkansas to get into a first-place tie with the RiverBlades. Louisiana enters tonight's game tied for second with Mississippi, which hosts Columbus tonight.

IceGators rebound – Last Friday's 6-1 loss in Pensacola was just the franchise's ninth loss by five or more in its history. The IceGators had once previously lost by five goals in the Dave Farrish regime – a 5-0 defeat by South Carolina in February 23, 2001. Louisiana, however, rebounded with a 2-1 win in Mississippi, as is customary after a big loss. The IceGators are 6-3 all-time after losing by five or more goals.

Magic number is four – Tuesday was the IceGators' first win when scoring less than four goals. Louisiana is 1-5-2 when failing to score four goals, and it is 8-0-0 when putting four or more goals on the board.

"Sweet Lou" gets first pro goal – It took IceGators defenseman Louis Mass 77 pro games to notch his first goal, but what a big one it was. Mass scored with 5:21 left in the third period Tuesday to give Louisiana a 2-1 victory over Mississippi. Mass, who had six assists in his 76 prior games, has also played for Pensacola and Pee Dee in his career, which started with three games at the end of the 2000-01 season. The IceGators picked up Mass from Pee Dee for cash earlier this month. He has three points this season, two with Louisiana, to match his total from all of last season, when he had three assists in 59 contests. Mass had been the active ECHL player who had played the most games without a goal from the start of his career. His tally leaves Dayton's Trevor Ettinger as the player with the longest goal-less streak to start his career – 69 games. Louisiana's Jeff Worlton and Baton Rouge's Shawn Scanzano are tied for third on the list at 32 games.

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, three more than former teammate Jay Murphy.

Both teams looking for a good start – The IceGators have scored first in back-to-back games for the first time this season. Louisiana has scored first in just six games this season, going 4-1-1 – including a 3-0-0 mark at home. Baton Rouge, meanwhile, has scored first in just two of 17 games – a 3-1 win over the IceGators on October 26 and a 4-1 loss to Mississippi the next night. Baton Rouge has been outscored 21-13 in the first period this season, and its eight-goal differential in the stanza is the third-worst in the league, trailing only Augusta (12 goals) and Dayton (nine).

Just looking for a lead – The Kingfish last held a lead in a game back on October 27th, when they scored the first goal of the game against the Sea Wolves and led 1-0 after the first period. The Kingfish have gone 577:07 without holding a lead after Mississippi tied the contest at the 4:34 mark of the second period of play. Not including a 0-0 tie to open a game, the Kingfish have been tied in a game seven times during the 10 game winless streak.

Still a ways to go – Baton Rouge's 10-game winless streak ties a franchise record, but Cam Brown's crew still has a few more games to go before setting the ECHL record for futility. The Huntington Blizzard and the Roanoke Valley Rampage both have the dubious distinction of holding the longest winless streaks in ECHL history, as they both dropped 16 straight. Two ECHL teams lost 10 straight games last season – Macon endured a 13-game streak, while Richmond dropped 10.

Leitza beat IceGators three times last season – Baton Rouge netminder Brian Leitza was the only ECHL goaltender last season to beat Louisiana three times, although two of the games were in shootouts. Leitza sports a 3-9-0 career mark against the IceGators with a 3.59 goals against average and a .905 save percentage. Last season, Leitza was 3-6-0 with a 3.30 goals against average and a .914 save percentage versus Louisiana.

Quick hits

Brian Leitza's nine losses against Louisiana are the most of any goaltender against the IceGators. Scott Legrande and Ron Vogel each have eight losses.

Bryan Richardson tallied three assists Tuesday against Jackson and now has 99 career assists as a Kingfish. His next will be number 100.

Baton Rouge is averaging 1.67 goals per game in its last three contests.

Shawn McNeil has points in 21 of the IceGators' last 23 games, dating to last season.

Kevin Mitchell (1g, 13a) leads the IceGators with 14 special-teams points, while Shawn McNeil (7g, 6a) is second with 13.

Kevin Mitchell's assist Tuesday was the 50th of his pro career.

Tuesday was Branislav Kvetan's 100th career pro game.

Frederic Cloutier's career goals against average is 2.13 in 48 games played. In two more games, he will qualify for the ECHL's all-time leaderboard in that category, which he would currently lead. Former Peoria netminder Curtis Sanford, who has played for the St. Louis Blues this season, had a 2.17 gaa in 51 games.



ECHL Stories from November 22, 2002


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