The Record's Sports Blog

You need good goaltending to win in the postseason, and Matt Thomas makes it clear he believes Olivier Roy is playing his best hockey of the postseason.

Roy gave up a power play goal and then held off the ECHL’s best offense. The Thunder managed to scratch out a goal by Eric Hunter in the third period and Andrew Clark scored in overtime as the Thunder beat Alaska 2-1. The Thunder, who were a decided underdog when this series began, is up 3-1 and and one win away from knocking off the team which had the best record in the regular season.

Thomas praised Roy after beating Alaska 5-2 on Thursday, and thought he was better in Game 4, when heh had 33 saves.

“You need your goalie to heat up and steal you a game, and I think tonight our goaltender stole us a game,” Thomas said.

If he can swipe one more, the Thunder are on their way to the conference finals.

It would be hard to overstate how big Thursday’s win was for the Stockton Thunder.

After managing to take a game from the Aces in Alaska, the Thunder proved its upset hopes are very real by beating Alaska 5-3 in Game 3 on Thursday at Stockton Arena.

The Aces won more games than anyone in the ECHL this season, but if they don’t find a way to beat the Thunder in Stockton, their season could end here. Alaska certainly won’t go easy, but the Thunder has made this series very interesting.

A few thoughts about Game 3:
* Mom was correct — you should always write your name on the inside of your hat. It seemed as if Matt Bergland had a hat trick for Stockton, and after a brief delay, many hats flew on to the ice. The call was reversed and the goal was changed to Harrison Reed. No hat trick, hats are gone. I have to admit, I’d try to get it back.

* When they get outplayed, the Aces get nasty. IAlaska forward Chris Clackson, who had 134 penalty minutes this season, hit Stockton’s Eric Hunter across the nose with his stick. Hunter went down and there was a puddle of blood on the ice. but he returned. There was no call, and Thunder coach Matt Thomas called it “a dirty play by a dirty player.” That would be accurate.

* Defenseman Landon Oslanski debuted for the Thunder after being signed out of juniors on Wednesday. And he held up pretty well. He played more as the game went along and had an assist in the first period.

With the constant change in teams from season to season and sometimes day to day, the past sometimes seems irrelevant in minor league hockey.

But the Stockton Thunder could learn something from recent history as it prepares to play the Alaska Aces in the third game of a seven-game series which is knotted at 1-1.

Last year, the Alaska Aces were heavily favored to beat the Stockton Thunder in a playoff series, and the Thunder managed to split the first two games in Anchorage. But any chances of an upset ended when Alaska swept all three games at Stockton Arena.

New year, same situation. One difference is the Thunder have been the kings of the comeback at home in the playoffs, and have won six in a row on its ice going back to the end of the regular season.

Still there’s enough people on this Thunder squad that remember 20012 and will work to avoid it.

“It’s different of course, but some of us do remember that disappointment and that’s not necessarily a bad thing,” Thunder coach Matt Thomas said. “We had to win at least one game in Alaska to win this series, and we did. But we understand how tough it will be to win the next one.”

The Thunder fell a couple of scores down again, which seemed really bad because this time they were on the road, not in the comfy, comeback-friendly confines of Stockton Arena.

But Stockton erased a 2-0 deficit and won 5-3 in Alaska to even its Western Conference series with the Aces at one game a piece.

And here’s what we learned:

* The Thunder can do the multi-goal rallies on the road too, but getting the early lead once in a while is a still a very good idea. Stockton has scored first in one of nine playoff games.

* In its four comeback victories in the postseason, the Thunder has owned the third period, scoring 12 goals, including four in Saturday.

* Matt Bergland is fine. He was taken out be a cheap shot to the head in the final contest of the Las Vegas series, and missed the first game against the Aces. He came back and got the game winner in Game 2.

* Stockton will miss defenseman Ryan Constant, who is out with a broken wrist, but winning in Alaska after seven consecutive losses this season at Sullivan Arena will give it tons of confidence.

The Thunder lost a game on Friday and may have lost one of their most important players for the rest of its playoff run.

The Alaska Aces beat the Thunder 5-2 in Game 1 of the best-of-seven ECHL National Conference semifinals on Friday. On Thursday, defenseman Ryan Constant suffered a broken wrist in a practice mishap and requires surgery, according to the Alaska Daily News. Although he’s listed as week-to-week, I wouldn’t count on seeing him again this series.

The Thunder get a chance to even the series on Saturday, but Constant is a terrible loss. He’s not just one of Stockton’s best players — he’s an emotional leader who adds toughness.

This will not be an easy void to fill.

After having come back time after time to save their postseason lives, the Thunder emphatically earned its spot in the second round by beating the Las Vegas Wranglers 6-4 in the seventh and final game of the series.

If only the officiating crew led by referee Ryan Murphy had as good a day.

Now, it’s easy to pick on the officials, and the ECHL is also a developmental for officials. But this crew stood out because of what it didn’t do.

The officials didn’t call anything, literally, for most of the game. Vegas was never assessed a penalty, and late in the game Stockton was suddenly hit with three tripping calls. The refs missed a lot, most notably a blatant late hit against Thunder forward Matt Bergland which led to an injury.

Bergland had just put a shot on the Wranglers’ net when Judd Blackwater blindsided with a high, hard hit to the head which knocked Bergland out of the game. Blackwater’s actions were everything that the leagues are trying to get out of the game — it was to the head, against a helpless player and he seemed to leave his feet as he delivered the blow.

But there was not a call. This doesn’t mean it won’t be addressed by the league. In December, Stockton forward Kristians Pelss was suspended 21 games for a slash to the head Bakersfield’s Olivier Dame-Malka even though there was no penalty. My guess is the league will be contacting Blackwater, although any punishment would have to be assessed next season.

A few thoughts on a big win for the Thunder:

* Stockton certainly didn’t look like a team which was shut out twice in this series by Vegas goalie goalie Joe Fallon, who was great most of the series. Ryan Hayes had a hat trick, Ryan Constant delivered another one of his clutch playoff performances and the Thunder thoroughly outplayed Vegas most of the way. A very strong performance when it needed it most.

* How good is the trade which brought Hayes from South Carolina for future considerations looking now? He had four points on Sunday and seven in the series.

* The chances of the Thunder getting any help from Oklahoma City of the AHL is fading. The Barons are currently ranked seventh in the Western Conference, and would have to drop two spots to miss the playoffs. So barring a late collaspe or some unexpected roster moves, this is likely the team Stockton will take into the Alaska series.

After playing six playoff games in eight days — a truly crazy pace — the Stockton Thunder and Las Vegas Wranglers used Saturday to rest up before Sunday’s seventh and final game at 4 p.m. at Stockton Arena. The teams can thank Vicente Fernandez,the legendary Ranchera singer, who played the arena on Saturday.

The Thunder had to rally from three goals down in the final period to force a seventh game, so it was a good chance to catch its breath. And the Wranglers get extra time to shake off the affects of coming so close to closing out the series.

And it should make for better hockey. The players had to be tired, and coaches Ryan Mougenel of Las Vegas and Matt Thomas of Stockton used the same word when describing the schedule:

Ridiculous.

“To play six games in eight nights in two different cities, it’s not conducive to health or good hockey,” Thomas said. “To have a day off and play game six, then a day off before seven, that makes sense. It’s what you deal with at the minor league level, but it’s tough.”

Reports of the Stockton Thunder’s postseason demise turned out to be false. Although it certainly looked bad for a while.

The Thunder, with its season all but over, scored five times in the third period and won 5-3 against the Las Vegas Wranglers on Friday at Stockton Arena. to force the ECHL first-round playoff series to a seventh game.

Best comeback in Thunder playoff history? Easily, and it had an unlikely hero — rookie defenseman Daniel Gibb, who scored his first professional goal to give Stockton the lead.

“I just shot it, and at first I didn’t know it went in,” Gibb said. “Everyone started to jump on me. That’s when i figured it went in.”

It was a shocking, emotional moment for the loyal Thunder fans who grimly watched as their team fell behind 3-0 with 15 minutes to go.

Now comes the final game, and we’ll see how the Wranglers deal with a tough situation. It look as though they would be back in Sin City watching the final round of the Masters on Sunday instead of playing for their playoff lives in Stockton.

Game time is 4 p.m. Sunday, and it should be an intense contest.

Here’s an interesting coincidence:

In its past four playoff series, the Thunder has won the second game 3-2 in overtime. It kept that streak going on Saturday when Harrison Reed was shoved from behind and and scored while falling forward 1:44 into overtime at Stockton Arena. Stockton won by the same score on Friday and lead 2-0 in the best-of-seven series.

We’ll refrain from calling it a commanding lead since these games could have gone either way. But the Thunder has shown a lot of grit in taking two dramatic, hard-fought wins. Vegas, despite playing well most of the time, is in quite a fix now and faces a must-win situation on Monday at home.

Harrison Reed on the winning goal: “I was a play where I was cutting the toward the net and looking for a shot. I watched it go as I was falling. It’s kind of hard to describe how you feel when something like that happens. You just won the game. It’s just indescribable.

Here’s a few notes from Game 2:

* Stockton’s Shawn Boutin landed a brutal hit on Chris Francis of Las Vegas in the second period. There was not a penalty called on the play, but Francis left the game bleeding badly from the nose. Wranglers coach Ryan Mougenel said he was disappointed there wasn’t a call on the play, while Boutin said he thought it was a clean hit.

* Reed scored the game winner, but it likely would not have happened if not for the hard work put in by Max Boisclair to keep the puck in the Las Vegas zone and getting it to Reed. The little things can lead to big things.

* Three former Thunder players with the Wranglers, and two of them — Geoff Paukovich and Judd Blackwater — have scored in the series. Adam Huxley has not scored.

Matt Bergland called it the canoe.”

After getting the winning goal in overtime in the Thunders 3-2 playoff win against Las Vegas on Friday, Bergland dropped to the seat off his pants and slid across the ice while motioning his stick.

Anyone who thought it looked like a guy paddling up stream was correct.

“I just got caught up in the moment, a little excited,” Bergland said. “I’m from (Faribault) Minnesota, I pulled out an old one. I call it the canoe.”

He certainly saved his team from being in deep water with what has to go down as the most dramatic comeback in Thunder playoff history.

Let’s be clear: Stockton got away with one. It didn’t play particularly well much of the game, and trailed 2-0 with 17 minutes to play in regulation. But the Thunder didn’t panic and got back into the game when Harrison Reed scored on a tip of Tony DeHart’s shot and Shawn Boutin picked a great time to score for the first time all season. Then Bergland finished a stunned Las Vegas squad.

The Thunder have the lead in the series 1-0, but it will have to pass better and play a more complete game against a veteran Las Vegas team which won’t fold despite a tough loss.

“Those types of games give us confidence, and we probably needed it because we didn’t play our best game,” Thunder coach Matt Thomas said. “If anything, I think it’s going to motivate them. But it should motivate us, too. We let a team come in here and dictate the pace for too much of that game, so we’ve got to be a lot better.”