Wranglers Corral Roadrunners 4-2

by Andrew Nordmeier
March 15, 2006 - ECHL (ECHL)
Phoenix RoadRunners


The Phoenix Roadrunners did two things that were positive in Tuesday night's game against the Las Vegas Wranglers. They scored the first goal and they scored the last goal. The only problem with that was the four Las Vegas scored in between to register a 4-2 win over Phoenix.

Las Vegas (45-10-6) scored twice in a 110-second span to break the game open and win its ninth out its last ten games.

First, Derek Edwardson scored an unassisted goal at 3:03 when he found a loose puck in front of the goal and slid it past Phoenix netminder Ryan Cyr to put Vegas ahead 3-1 with his 15th of the year. The crushing goal came when Matt Dzieduszycki collected a rebound at the side of the net and stuffed it by Cyr at 4:53 to make it a three-goal game on his 32nd of the season.

"Vegas is in second place for a reason, they have a very well-coached hockey club," Phoenix Roadrunners Head Coach Ron Filion said, "You can't really make any mistakes. We made a few mistakes and they took advantage of it."

Phoenix (19-38-3) got one back off of a missile from defenseman Brad Woods at 6:24. He uncorked a laser beam from the right circle and it beat a screened Marc Magliarditi for his sixth goal of the season. The Wranglers' netminder couldn't find the puck before it snuck in under the crossbar to bring the Roadrunners back.

After that point, the Roadrunners failed to generate much offensively and looked like a team that has lost 15 of its last 18 games since the team's season-best five-game winning streak at the end of January. Las Vegas outshot Phoenix 45-20. Neither team converted on the power play; Phoenix had four chances with the man advantage, Vegas had three.

Phoenix got on the board first at 3:24 with offense from an unlikely source. That source was defenseman Dusty Demaniuk as he got his first goal of the season. His long shot from the right point made him the last of the original Roadrunner skaters to get in the goal column this season.

Vegas responded back with Dan Tudin's goal at 8:35 off of bad clearing effort from the Phoenix defense. Tudin tipped a loose puck off of Cyr's pad for his 29th goal of the season. Vegas pulled ahead for good when Steve Marr's shot from the left point found the back of the net at 18:00 of the opening period on his first goal of the season.

"Overall, I'm happy with the boys' effort," Filion said, "Some of them have to prove a few things not just to me but prove they can be a regular player at this level."

These two teams meet again Thursday night to close out the two-game series. They also have two head-to-head meetings in the final week of the regular season.

Three Stars

3. Tudin-LV Goal and an assist in the win

2. Cyr-PHX Played strong in net; Stopped 41 of 45

1. Edwardson-LV Goal and an assist

Notes: Phoenix scored first for just the 16th time this season and now 11-5-0 when doing so...Vegas pulled to within two points of the Alaska Aces for the best record in the league... Dzieduszycki's goal put him into second on the ECHL goal list with 32, four behind Idaho's Garrett Bembridge...Tudin moved into second place on the plus-minus list with his +2 in this game. He now has a +37 rating, trailing Alaska's Peter Metcalf (+39) for the league lead...Magliarditi picked up his 31st win of the season, tying him with Alaska's Matt Underhill for the league lead; on the other end of the spectrum Cyr fell to 0-9-0 this season and has a total of 10 goals of offensive support this season...Phoenix scored in the first period for the first time in 11 games since Feb. 21st against Utah...The Roadrunners have scored the fewest goals in the ECHL with 132; the next fewest is Trenton with 145...Attendance was 3,100.



ECHL Stories from March 15, 2006


The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer(s), and do not necessarily reflect the thoughts or opinions of OurSports Central or its staff.

OurSports Central