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ECHL Reading Royals

Reading Royals Weekly

November 15, 2010 - ECHL (ECHL)
Reading Royals News Release


Since acquiring Ben Gordon from Cincinnati in a late season trade in 2009, Royals fans have become accustomed to Ben's offensive pro- duction, which is certainly reflected in his numbers. After this weekend, during which Gordo racked up his fourth multi-point per- formance of the season on Saturday and scored an important goal on Sunday, Ben is currently second on the team in scoring (3g- 10a=13pts) and is tied for the team lead in plus-minus at +8. In fact, in 80 total games with Reading, Gordon has registered a total of 100 points (33g-67a), which places him sixth on the team's all-time scoring list. All of that is great. But we saw something just a bit different this past weekend out of Ben-a little fiery and physical edge that paid dividends when he racked up a Stingray early in the third on Saturday and generated a turnover that resulted in the GWG. To be sure, Gordo picked up a point on the play, but he also may have picked up a little something even more important that doesn't always translate neatly into numbers.....

TOP NOTES OF THE WEEK

1. After the team's three victories this past week, the Royals are currently riding a four game win streak, dating back to a 6-3 win over the Elmira Jackals on November 6, 2010. The Royals have compiled a record of 6-1-0-0 in the team's last seven games. Sunday's win over the South Carolina Stingrays pushed Reading's record two games above .500 for the first time this year (7-5-0-0, .583 win percentage).

2. The Royals completed the team's season long six game road trip on Thursday with a 2-1 victory in Wheeling over the Nailers. Reading went 4-2-0-0 on the road trip. The team returned home to the Sovereign Center on Saturday night to begin a stretch in which the team will play eleven home games out of the next thirteen. Saturday's 5-3 win over South Carolina was the Royals first home win of the year.

3. Reading has scored the game's first goal in four consecutive games. The Royals are 7-0-0-0 when scoring first (and 0-5-0-0 when the opposition scores first).

4. Olivier Labelle scored the Royals' first goal in Thursday's win in Wheeling while the Royals were playing on a five-on-three power play. That marked his team-leading fourth power play goal of the season and his second 'first goal' of the year. Labelle extended his personal goal scoring streak to three straight games on Saturday when he scored what proved to be his team-leading second game winning goal of the year. Labelle is currently riding a four game point streak (3g-1a).

5. Chris Blight scored his first goal of the season for Reading while the team was on the power play early in Thursday's 2-1 win over the Wheeling Nailers. That goal proved to be the game winner. In his first stint with the Royals (in 2007-08), five of his twenty-one goals were game winners. Blight also picked up a pair of assists in Saturday's win, and he assisted on the first goal of the game on Sunday. Blight has registered at least a point in all five games he's played for Reading this year (1g-8a=9pts).

6. Matt Caruana assisted on the game winner by Chris Blight last Thursday in Wheeling and registered his first three point game of the year (2g-1a) in Reading's 5-3 win over South Carolina on Saturday. Caruana then scored his team-leading third 'first goal' of the year in Sunday's 3-2 win for Reading. Caruana currently leads the Royals with ten goals and fifteen points (10g-5a). He is riding a team long seven game point streak (8g-3a=11pts). Caruana has had at least a point in ten of the Royals' twelve games played this season.

7. Andrew Sarauer registered his third multi-point game of the year (1g-1a) in Saturday's 5-3 win over the Stingrays. That extended Sarauer's personal point streak to five games (2g-6a=8pts), which was snapped on Sunday. Sarauer has had at least one point in nine of the Royals' twelve games this season.

8. Ben Gordon registered his third multi-assist (and fourth multi-point) game of the season when he picked up a pair of helpers, including one on the game winner by Olivier Labelle, in Saturday's 5-3 win over South Carolina. Gordon also scored his third goal of the year in Sunday's 3-2 win against the Stingrays. For Gordon, that goal was his 100th point as a Royal (33g-67a) in eighty total games. He is the sixth player in team history to reach the century mark in points in a Royals' sweater. Gordon is cur- rently sixth on Reading's All-Time Scoring list, one point behind Greg Hogeboom (and 39 points behind Brad Rooney, the team's All-Time Scoring leader). Gordon, who has registered at least one point in 9 of the 12 games played by Reading this year, is currently tied for the team lead (with Jared Ross) in plus-minus, playing to a plus-8 (+8).

9. Ryan Cruthers scored the tie-breaking game winning goal with just 5:48 remaining in regula- tion time in Sunday's 3-2 win for Reading over South Carolina, snapping a five game goal scor- ing drought in the process. Cruthers also assisted on Ben Gordon's goal in that game for his fourth multi-point performance of the season.

10. Goaltender Ben Scrivens stopped a season high 40 shots in Reading's 2-1 win over the Wheeling Nailers last Thursday. Scrivens also stopped 31 of the 33 shots he faced in register- ing his third consecutive win-and his first win at the Sovereign Center-on Sunday over the South Carolina Stingrays. Scrivens' .931 save percentage is the third best in the league. His 2.46 goals against average is eighth in the ECHL.

11. Goaltender Matt Dalton registered his second consecutive victory (and third of the year) in Saturday's 5-3 win over South Carolina. Saturday's win was Dalton's thirty-fifth total victory as a Royal (25 regular season and ten in playoffs). That win pushes him past Barry Brust (30 regu- lar season wins and 4 playoff victories) as the second on the All-Time Total Wins list for Royals' goaltenders. (Cody Rudkowsky leads that category with 64 wins for Reading: 56 regular season and 8 in playoffs.)

CLOSING NOTES

1. The Royals scored on their first two power play opportunities of the week- registering back-to-back goals on both ends of a five-on-three power play against the Wheeling Nailers last Thursday. Since that time, the PP has been held off the board by the opposition (0-8). Overall, Reading has scored 10 PPGs in 51 chances with the man advantage (19.6% scoring ratio-6th in the league).

2. The Royals' opponents scored at least one power play goal in each of the three games played this week, stretching the team's streak to five consecutive games in which Reading's PK has given up at least one PPGA (dating back to the 3-2 shoot- out win in Toledo on October 30). The Royals have allowed a total of 15 power play goals against in 78 chances for the opponents, which is a 80.8% kill ratio (14th in the league).

3. This week the Royals play three games against Atlantic Division rivals, starting with a home-and-home series against the Trenton Devils. The Royals split the first two games of the season against the Devils. The season opening win over Tren- ton marked the 50th time the Royals beat the team from Trenton (50-45-10). Sunday's game is the 40th in team history against Elmira: 17-20-2.

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