The St. John’s Maple Leafs won their first game at Mile One Centre in more than 14 years.
The Newfoundland Growlers made it eight wins in a row at Mile One.
Both were accomplished Saturday night in the same contest as the home side came away with a 3-2 win over the Worcester Railers in ECHL play at Mile One Centre. That’s because the Growlers were wearing throwback jerseys highlighting the AHL Leafs, the province’s first professional hockey team.
All three goals by the Growlers/Maple Leafs came on the power play, including two by Marcus Power, while goalie and U.S. Army First Lieutenant Parker Gahagen made 29 saves in his first start for Newfoundland.
The win was the fifth straight for the Growlers, a streak that started with a road win in Maine and continued with consecutive home-ice sweeps of the Reading Royals and Worcester.
And after a second straight four-game homestand without a loss, the Growlers are 11-2 at Mile One this season.
That’s part of an 17-8-0 overall record that has Newfoundland at the top of the North Division, four points up on the Royals.
After giving up six third-period goals in a 7-5 loss to the Growlers Friday, Worcester (6-14-1) came into the rematch with extra incentive to end Newfoundland’s winning ways. Nevertheless, it was the home side that came out strongest; it was only the play of Railers’ netminder Evan Buitenhuis that kept the score 0-0 through an opening period, where the Growlers outshot the visitors 16-9.
“We had a ton of chances off the rush early on, we could have had four or five goals in the first 10 minutes, but their goalie made some great saves,” said Growlers head coach John Snowden.
At the other end, Gahagen wasn’t as busy, but did what he had to in making sure the game was scoreless through the opening frame,
And while the 26-year-old graduate of the U.S. Military Academy was obviously aware of what Buitenhuis was doing 200 feet away, he didn’t see himself involved in some individual matchup with the Royals netminder.
‘I can’t really look on whether he’s having a good or bad game, because that means I’m losing some of my focus, which is stopping the puck, doing what I can do to keep my team in the game,” said Gahagen, who was making his first-ever ECHL start.
There was a flurry of scoring early in the second, with Worcester goals by Kyle Thomas and Jordan Samuels-Thomas, the latter on the power play, sandwiched around Power’s first tally.
But after that, Gahagen wasn’t beaten again. Newfoundland, meanwhile, got a tying marker later in the second from Trey Bradley and the winner early in the third on Power’s ninth goal of the season and fifth in as many games.
The winning goal came just after a big shorthanded save by Gahagen, who looked more confident as the night proceeded.
“I thought he played really well,’ said Snowden of his new netminder. “As the game went on, you could see he started to feel the flow, the pace of the game, more and more.
“Now, I thought we did a good job in front of him, didn’t give up many good scoring chances, but when we did, he made the saves. And that’s all you want.
“You could he’s a good goalie and what he has, which is something considering all the time he missed.”
Here’s the back story explaining Snowden’s last comments.
Gahagen, who had been a Hobey Baker finalist as the top player in U.S college hockey during his senior year with Army, was brought in by Newfoundland from the Evansville Thunderbolts of the Southern Professional Hockey League after Angus Redmond was injured earlier in the just-completed homestead.
With Evansville, Garhagen had compiled a 3-2-1 record, with a 2.63 goals-against average and .909 save percentage in his first action in the better part of two years. He had appeared in five games for the American Hockey League’s San Jose Barracuda during the first half of the 2017-18 season, but then had to begin began fulfilling his military requirements as a graduate of West Point.
Gahagen is still officially on active duty and commissioned officer, but is so as part of the U.S. Army's World Class Athlete Program, which allows servicemen and servicewomen who are potential Olympic athletes to compete in their sports or discipline.
Today, the Growlers fly west to Salt Lake City for three games against the Utah Grizzlies, beginning Wednesday. Gahagen will be with them as he continues to work on moving up the levels of pro hockey and possibly to the Olympics.
“Obviously, you have it in the back of your mind about getting this sort of opportunity. It’s natural, part of wanting to be better, to do the best you can and the most you can in sport.” said Garhagen.
“But while I was with Evansville, my focus was on improving that team and doing whatever I could to help them win.
“It will be the same here, I promise.”
Dog Bites
Attendance Saturday was 4,053, the highest of the four most-recent home games … Newfoundland rookie defenceman Joseph Duszak drew an assist Saturday, giving him 23 points on the season and making him both the highest-scoring defenceman and highest-scoring first-year player in the ECHL … The Growlers were to have worn two alternate jerseys on the weekend. Friday’s game was to have see the Newfoundland players in Batman-themed uniforms as part of a DC Comics night that’s scheduled for all ECHL clubs. However, the jerseys didn’t arrive in time for the game — the league Tweeted out it was an issue with the supplier. There are no plans to do that particular theme game again this season, although the Growlers are set to wear alternate garb twice more as participants in league-organized nights centered around characters from Marvel Comics and the Nickelodeon network …
Twitter: @telybrendan
