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Drummond Marches Long Beach to 5-0 Win Over Roadrunners

by Andrew Nordmeier
December 18, 2005 - ECHL (ECHL)
Phoenix RoadRunners


Jeff Drummond scored his first two professional goals in the first period and the Long Beach Ice Dogs didn't look back as they routed the Phoenix Roadrunners 5-0 Saturday night at the Long Beach Arena.

Drummond bagged his first goal at 10:40 when he found a loose puck and backhanded it over Phoenix goaltender Michael Mole. He scored again at 17:29 when his wrister from the slot went over Mole's right shoulder and into the net. Ash Goldie and Kevin Ulanski assisted on both goals for Long Beach.

As if Drummond's pair in the opening period wasn't enough, Long Beach (13-11-2) scored twice in the first 2:22 of the second period to deliver a haymaker and drop Phoenix (8-13-2) to the canvas.

Chris Kenady's eighth goal of the season beat Mole 1:07 in to make it 3-0. Luke Fritschaw's first professional goal came at 2:22 when his shot whistled over Mole's glove to make it 4-0. Mole gave up four goals on 17 Long Beach shots. That would be all for Mole as he was pulled in favor of Mathieu Chouinard and he fared a little better.

Chouinard was burnt at the tail end of a four-minute power play when Justin Akens' eighth goal of the year found the back of the net at 12:02. Christian Larrivee was behind the Phoenix net and he slipped the pass out front to Akens. He made no mistake and zipped it by Chouinard on the blocker side to make it 5-0. The third period was scoreless but filled with penalties and five fights as the Roadrunners were clearly frustrated by the score.

Phoenix has lost consecutive games after winning four of its last six. The Roadrunners finished 0-for-3 on the power play while Long Beach went 1-of-8 with the man advantage. Greg Hewitt stopped all 24 Phoenix shots to pitch his first shutout of the season to improve to 11-10-1. Long Beach outshot Phoenix 33-24 on the night.

Phoenix has little time to right the ship as they host Bakersfield tomorrow night at America West Arena to close out the three-game, three-night weekend. Phoenix also hosts the Idaho Steelheads Wednesday and Thursday before heading into the ECHL's holiday break.

Three Stars

3. Fritschaw-LBH First pro goal knocked out Mole.

2. Goldie-LBH Two assists in the win.

1. Drummond-LBH First two professional goals to get the Ice Dogs going.

Notes: Long Beach scored the first goal of the game for the 16th time this season and is now 12-3-1 when doing so...The Roadrunners are 3-10-2 when allowing the first goal and have allowed it in four straight games...Phoenix defenseman Dusty Demaniuk missed his second straight game with an undisclosed injury; forward Mike Ouellet slid back to the blue line to fill in...Roadrunners' forward J.F. Soucy was scratched from the lineup and missed just his second game of the season...This game was the first time Ice Dogs' forward Blake Robson played against his former team; Phoenix released him two weeks ago and Long Beach picked him up...Long Beach is 6-0-0 when leading after two periods and Phoenix is 0-11-0 when trailing after 40 minutes...Phoenix defenseman Brent Henley, the league leader in penalty minutes, wasn't penalized for the first time this season and snapped a 13-game run of going to the penalty box.

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