News release
26 February 2011
Elmira, N.Y. - The Elmira Jackals (24-23-6-1), playing in front of the second-largest hometown crowd in team history on Saturday night, staged a dramatic comeback to shock the Reading Royals (35-14-2-3), 5-4, at First Arena. The collection of 4,231 fans at First Arena was second in team history only to a gathering of 4,325 fans last season on Nov. 6, 2009 and was Elmira's ninth sellout crowd of the 2010-2011 campaign.
After Andrew Sarauer tipped in a puck off of a Ryan Donald shot short handed to put Reading up 1-0 just over six minutes into the game, Michael Dubuc batted in a free puck from the right side of the crease to tie the game, 1-1, at the 9:25 mark of the first period.
In the second period, Chris Blight shot a puck past the stick side of Jackals goaltender Marco Cousineau after being found backdoor by Matt Caruana to put Reading back in front, 2-1, at the 58 second mark.
Dale Mahovsky banked a puck in from the left corner off of Royals goaltender Matt Dalton to tie the game, 2-2, at 2:47.
Olivier Labelle redirected a feed from Dale Mitchell into the net as a Royals power play ended at 5:29 to give Reading a 3-2 lead, which it took into the third period.
The Jackals had not won a game when trailing after two periods since Nov. 13 of this season, while Reading had a record of 22-1-1-1 when taking a lead into the final frame. Early in the third period, Matt Caruana put the odds decidedly in Reading's favor when he snapped a puck over Cousineau's glove on the power play from the left circle to give Reading a 4-2 advantage.
Elmira, which had just one victory this season when allowing four goals or more in a game, solidified defensively and continued to pepper Dalton in the other end of the ice. Justin Donati's shot from the right circle caromed off of Dalton and into the net at 2:43 to bring Elmira to within a goal, 4-3.
Moments later, Eric Lampe found Donati backdoor from the left goal line, and Donati drove the puck in to tie the contest, 4-4, at 4:13.
Chances by each team were denied by Cousineau and Dalton over the next 13 minutes. Elmira was searching for its first lead with under two minutes to go as Donati sprung Lampe and Yannick Tifu on a two-on-two rush into the offensive end. Tifu fired in Lampe's cross-ice feed from the left circle at 18:06 past Dalton's stick to give Elmira its first and only lead of the night, 5-4.
Cousineau and the Jackals kept the Royals out of the net in the final moments of the game, and the Jackals held on for the dramatic win, 5-4.
Making 27 saves on 31 shots, Cousineau earned his team-leading 15th victory of the season and improved to 15-11-4-0. Dalton's record dropped to 14-7-1-0 as he stopped 36 of 41 shots.
With the victory, the Jackals jumped over Toledo and into a tie for eight place in the Eastern Conference standings with Gwinnett.
Elmira's victory snapped a five-game Royals winning streak, as the league's top team fell for the first time since Feb. 12.