In the first game (on Wednesday), the IceCats clearly dominated the Maple Leafs, going up 3-1 in the first period and outshooting St. John's 17-6. defenseman Christer Olsson scored two power play goals to give Worcester the lead, blasting slapshots past St. John's goalie Jason Saal. IceCat center Alex Vasilevskii scored in between Olsson's goals, rounding out Worcester's attack.
Early in the second period, the IceCats scored again on a power play goal by "visiting" (from the Blues) center David Roberts, assisted by centers Craig Darby and Fred Knipscheer. The Maple Leafs rallied again and added a power play goal of their own five minutes later when St. John left wing Ken Belanger connected off of a feed by center Kelly Fairchild. The remainder of the period featured a massive brawl in the Maple Leafs zone (involving several minor penalties, fighting majors, and 10-minute misconducts), but no further scoring, leaving the score 4-2 in favor of the IceCats.
In the third, St. John's got back into the game, scoring another power play goal about six minutes into the period. That was all the Maple Leafs could get however, as Fichaud shut the doors on St. John's with several incredible saves. With only five seconds left in regulation, Knipscheer scored an open net, shorthanded goal to solidify the IceCats victory, 5-3.
On Friday night, the Maple Leafs returned to the Centrum fired up to even the two game series. Goaltender Marcel Cousineau started for St. John's, squaring off against, once again, Eric Fichaud for the IceCats.
As was expected, this game featured very little scoring and quite a few penalties, starting with a five minute major plus a game misconduct to the Maple Leafs Fairchild for checking from behind, matching roughing calls on IceCat Shaun Kane and St. John's goon Guy Lehoux, and an additional minor for holding on Lehoux - all just 15 seconds into the game!
Similar to the IceCats game against the PEI Senators a couple of weeks ago, this game was extremely wide-open, end to end hockey. With all the penalties, the special lines from both teams got quite a workout, and both goals scored in the game came on the power play (as well as in the third period).
Early in the third, defenseman Jason Widmer scored his first goal of the season with a 20 foot slapshot, giving the IceCats the lead, 1-0. Late in the period, however, the Maple Leafs mucked in a shot past Fichaud to tie the game at one apiece, and that's the way it ended. Fichaud played spectacular (what a surprise), turning away over 40 shots and earning the #1 star of the evening. He certainly deserved his second shutout of the season, but at the very least improved his numbers and maintained ranking among the very top goalies of the league.
These two games improved the IceCats overall record to 11-9-2, placing them solidly in second place in their division despite playing 3 or 4 games less than most other teams in the league. The next IceCats home game is on Wednesday night (the 6th) at 7:05 against the Saint John Flames (Calgary's farm team), followed by a Saturday night match up versus the Providence Bruins.
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