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ECHL Reading Royals

Royals Trampled by Titans, 5-2

November 9, 2011 - ECHL (ECHL)
Reading Royals News Release


Trenton, NJ - The Reading Royals of the ECHL (5-5-1-011, 2nd Atlantic Division), affiliate of the Toronto Maple Leafs and Boston Bruins of the National Hockey League and the Toronto Marlies of the American Hockey League, were defeated by the Trenton Titans (3-7-0-06, 4th Atlantic Division), 5-2, at Sun National Bank Center in Trenton, New Jersey. For the second consecutive game, the Royals fell behind by four goals before breaking through with what proved to be too little, too late. After starting the season 4-0-1 on the opposition's home ice, Reading has lost two straight on the road.

Karel St. Laurent (2-2-0-0, 33/38) fell victim to a leaky and disjointed overall effort by the Royals that coughed up far too many pucks and failed to protect the critical areas on the ice. Trenton's Dave Caruso (2-4-0-0, 30/32) had to make a bunch of quality stops against the Royals who had a surprising number of Grade-A chances despite the lack of sustained offensive cohesion. Reading finally broke through with a third period power play goal by Olivier Labelle (1-3). The Titans scored their first goal of the game on their second power play of the night (1-7), marking the ninth game out of eleven played that the Royals have given up at least on power play goal against.

Trenton broke through 12:07 into the first when Ryan Hayes was allowed to walk off the left wing wall virtually uncontested all the way to the interior hash-mark of the left circle, where he fired a high snap shot. St. Laurent got a chunk of the puck, but not enough, and it tumbled into the net for the power play goal which staked Trenton to the 1-0 lead.

Late in the first, the Royals Rob Kwiet fired a shot from the left point in the offensive end that squarely hit the shin pad of Randy Rowe and ricocheted into the neutral zone. Rowe beat Kwiet to the loose puck and was off to the races, ripping a bullet over the left shoulder of St. Laurent for his fourth goal of the year with just 1:18 left in the period. Forty-eight seconds later, the Royals got caught with too many guys above the puck, resulting in a break for Trenton's Dustin Cameron down the right wing side. Cameron fired from wide on the right side. His shot went across St. Laurent's body and hit pay-dirt off the left pipe for his second of the season.

In the second, despite a disconnected attack, the Royals were able to generate a number of quality scoring chances-and fifteen shots on net-but Caruso was up to the task. 12:21 into the period, Ryan Hayes, Denny Kearney and Blair Yaworski worked a tic-tac-toe passing play-right, left, right-directly down the middle of the slot which led to an easy tap in on the right pipe for Yaworski to make it 4-0 Trenton.

In the third, the Royals finally broke through while playing on the power play for the second time in the game. Denny Urban gained possession in the left circle and, after his initial effort to pass was blocked back onto his stick, feathered a perfect pass to the top of the crease, where it angled off of Olivier Labelle's skate and into the net for Labelle's fifth of the year 4:45 into the period. Trenton took the air out of any come-back hope for the Royals with Rowe's second of the night 14:38 into the final period. Another turnover in the neutral zone, allowed Andy Bombach to carry into the offensive end. Bombach hit Rowe coming down the middle, and Rowe hit his spot (low glove) with a one-timed rocket. That was Rowe's fifth goal of the season-four of which have come in two games against Reading. The Royals added a late slam by Labelle-his sixth of the year-from out front to make it 5-2. But that wasn't going to be enough in this one which had been decided far earlier in the evening.

The Royals finish a five game road trip on Friday (November 11, 2011 @ 7:35 pm) in Elmira, New York against the Elmira Jackals. The game night broadcast will start at 7:05 pm with the Red Robin Gourmet Burger Pre-Game Warm-up Show on ESPN Radio 1240 am in Reading. Streaming audio is available free of charge courtesy of America One through the Royals' website, www.royalshockey.com. As with all Royals road games, next Friday's contest in Greenville will be televised in Berks County on BCTV courtesy of Boscov's Travel and the Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines.

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ECHL Stories from November 9, 2011


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