The Lowell Lock Monsters responded to Coach
Frank Anzalones practices
and extra work in a big way tonight against Atlantic Division
rival
Portland Pirates. The Lock Monsters have now defeated Portland
twice
this season.
Tonight, they dominated a very young and seemingly confused
Portland
team. The Pirates have been off since last Saturday just like
Lowell
but they came out flat and never recovered.
Lowell came out flying in the first period, they didn't score but
they
outshot and out played Portland the entire time. The Lock
Monsters
executed the netural-zone trap to perfection for most of the
night.
Sean Haggerty opened the scoring at 0:53 of the 2nd period after
scoring on the power play. Steve Tardif tied the game for
Portland at
2:59 and then Portland went ahead on a Mark Major tally at 9:34
of the
2nd.
The third period was all Lock Monsters. Buddy Wallace got his
first
professional goal at 2:37 of period. The Monsters than caught a
major
break from referee Dan O'Halloran when Lock Monsters D John
Namenstikov's shot hit the inside of the crossbar. Portland
argued
but O'Halloran said the puck went it. It was very close from my
angle, about 15 feet in from the blueline in the offensive zone.
Vladimir Orszagh and Mark Lawerence rounded out the scoring.
Marcel Cousineau had 20 saves on the night, Martin Brochu had 30
for
Portland.
The 3 stars of the game (selected by Portland media)
1. Namestikov
2. Haggerty
3. Chara
My choices would have been:
1. Charron
2. Gaul
3. Wallace
http://www.portlandpirates.com
Pirates Drop Home Opener, 5-2
October 16, 1998
Portland, Maine - After a grueling first weekend on the road, the Portland Pirates returned to the Civic Center looking for some home cooking. The meal was spoiled by the Lowell Lock Monsters who scored four goals in the third period to overcome a 2-1 deficit and beat the Pirates 5-4.
The Pirates get another chance at their first win of the season when they host the Adirondack Red Wings on Saturday, October 17th at 7:35 p.m. The Pirates will host "Women In Sports Night" and give away magnetic schedules to the first 2,500 fans. The schedules are courtesy of Maine Wireless.
The Portland Pirates are still looking for their first win of the new season. The Lowell Lock Monsters ensured the Pirates' early season slide would continue as they came from behind to beat the Pirates 5-2 in Portland. The Pirates are now 0-3-0-0 in 1998-99.
The first period was scoreless thanks in large part to Martin Brochu. The Lock Monsters used three powerplays to pepper the Pirates' goaltender with 11 shots. Brochu turned aside each one.
The Lock Monsters opened the scoring early in the second period. Again on the powerplay, Lowell's Sean Haggerty popped in a rebound to put the visitors up 1-0.
The Pirates responded with good forechecking. It paid off when Steve Tardif picked a defenseman's pocket and threw a wrister by Lowell's Marcel Cousineau to tie the game at one. Six and a half minutes later, Steve Poapst and Trent Whitfield did the heavy work along the wall, feeding Mark Major for his first goal of the season and a 2-1 lead at the second intermission.
The Lock Monsters responded to the challenge in the third. Buddy Wallace and Yevgeny Namestnikov scored goals 1:11 apart to wrestle the lead away from the Pirates. They got goals from Vladimir Orszagh and Mark Lawrence later in the period to put the game out of reach. The 5-2 win is Lowell's second of the season. Both have come at the expense of the Pirates.
The Pirates get another chance at their first win of the season when they host the Adirondack Red Wings on Saturday, October 17th at 7:35 p.m. The Pirates will host "Women In Sports Night" and give away magnetic schedules to the first 2,500 fans. The schedules are courtesy of Maine Wireless.
Nashua Telegraph:
Namestnikov gives Monsters a lift
By MIKE ZHE, Telegraph Sports Correspondent
PORTLAND, Maine – As Manchester city officials haggle over plans for a proposed civic center, the American Hockey League is fast closing in on its magic number that might shut them out for good.
In 1990, the AHL was a 14-team regional league with franchises located almost exclusively in the northeast U.S. and eastern Canadian provinces. Since then, it’s expanded to take in teams to the South and Midwest, and with this year’s addition of the Lowell Lock Monsters, membership now stands at 19.
Here’s the problem: The AHL, long considered hockey’s top minor league, can see the end of the expansion boom on the horizon. Teams in Hampton Roads, Va., and Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, Pa., will join the league next year, and the Florida Panthers have expressed interest in purchasing a franchise of their own and putting it in Louisville, Ky.
Yes, the clock is ticking.
"There’s a point where you have to draw the line," AHL spokesman Brent Maurer said. "I think the ideal size for us will be 24 teams."
So Manchester better hurry, right?
"We don’t have a formal application from that market," Maurer said. "There’s been speculation that they’d want to be considered, but until we have that application ..."
Therein lies the city’s problem. Among the application prerequisites is a lease agreement with the arena. Without an arena, there can be no lease agreement. With no lease agreement, there can be no franchise.
And until that day comes, New Hampshire pro hockey fans will have to get their fixes at Tsongas Arena and the FleetCenter.
Pirated
The Lock Monsters got a scare late in the second period of Friday’s 5-2 win over Portland, when goalie Marcel Cousineau was flattened by a pile-up in front of the net. Cousineau, the seasoned netminder who checks in at 5-foot-9, 180 pounds, lay flat on the ice for several moments before being helped up. He stayed in the game.
"He just landed on my back," Cousineau said. "I felt it."
Locals to be honored
New Hampshire Olympians Tricia Dunn and Katie King will be honored here tonight as part of Portland’s "Women in Sports" program. Dunn, from Derry, and King, from Salem, were both members of the U.S. women’s hockey team that won the gold in Nagano in February. They will be meeting fans and signing autographs, and participating in a relay competition with youth skaters during the first intermission of Portland’s game with Adirondack. ...
Speaking of Olympians, Pirates goalie Mike Rosati, a former New York Rangers prospect, is back playing in the U.S. for the first time in eight years. Rosati played for six years in Italy, where his father was born, and represented that country in the past two Winter Olympics. ...
Lowell and Portland took the ice Friday night with the league’s two worst penalty killing units: The Lock Monsters have only killed of seven of their 12 man-down situations (58.3 percent) while Portland has succeeded just nine of 26 times (56.3 percent).
Portland Press Herald
Winless Pirates fall apart in 3rd period
By BARRY SVRLUGA
Staff Writer
Things were different at the Cumberland County Civic Center Friday night, from the giant, inflatable skull and crossbones to the wide smile on Dave Fisher's face to the talk of the new Portland Pirates' owners that made its way through the stands.
But on the ice, the results for the Portland Pirates were very much the same.
The Pirates allowed four third-period goals to turn a 2-1 lead into a 5-2 loss to the Lowell Lock Monsters before 5,560 fans at the Civic Center.
The Pirates had never lost two games to start a season before. Now, they've dropped three, including a pair to Lowell, their newest New England rivals.
The latest loss came on yet another day of transition for the Pirates. Joyce Ebright, the team's majority owner, announced Friday that she intends to sell her share of the team to a group led by Fisher, the team's minority owner, and Chester E. Homer III, a Kennebunkport businessman who owns Shawnee Peak ski area. The move marks Ebright's third attempt to sell in the last seven months.
And the game was the Pirates' third try for a win. Tonight, when Adirondack visits, they'll take a fourth crack.
''We've got to stop it,'' said Kent Hulst, Portland's captain. ''We've got to stop it right away. We can't let it get to four or five or more.''
For a while, it didn't seem it would.
After a scoreless first, the Pirates responded to Sean Haggerty's power-play goal for Lowell with a pair of scores.
At 2:29 of the second, Steve Tardif lifted a backhander - just Portland's third shot to that point - past Lowell goalie Marcel Cousineau, and it was 1-1.
Seven minutes later, Mark Major - who twice fought Lowell defenseman Dean Malkoc - blistered his first goal of the year past Cousineau, and the Pirates had their first lead of the year, 2-1.
The crowd, which before the game watched the Pirates skate through the new skull and crossbones and had listened to radio clips from the great moments in team history, was getting into things.
''We got it down in there and were really working it,'' Hulst said. ''They couldn't really handle us.''
But it didn't last long. The stretch was Portland's only productive one of the night, and before the crowd was completely seated in the third, Buddy Walters had tied the game at 2:27. Eighty-one seconds later, Yevgeny Namestnikov scored what would become the game-winner when he buried a shot up underneath the top of the net. It bounced back out, play continued briefly, the red light went on and the Pirates argued a bit.
''I heard it hit the post,'' said Portland goalie Martin Brochu, making his first start of the season. ''I don't know what happened after that. The guys on the bench said it went in the net.''
It did, and Lowell led 3-2. Late goals by Vladimir Orszagh and Mark Lawrence, his third in two games against Portland, finished off the Pirates.
The game got chippy late, with Tardif and Lowell's Ray Schultz squaring off a couple of times. And while that might be a precursor of what's to come when the teams meet 10 more times during the year, it doesn't speak to the Pirates' current woes.
''The mistakes we're making are minor,'' said Portland forward Brad Church.