Not even the first shutout of his professional career was enough to get Stockton Thunder goalie Olivier Roy his first ECHL victory on Friday night (Nov. 4).
Although Roy was perfect through three periods plus overtime, his teammates were unable to muster a single goal for him as the Thunder suffered a 1-0 shootout loss to the Utah Grizzlies before a crowd of 6,193 at Stockton Arena. The victory was the seventh in a row for the Grizzlies, who will face the Thunder at Stockton Arena again Saturday (Nov. 5) at 7:30 p.m.
“You can’t get beat when your goalie plays that well,” Thunder Coach Matt Thomas said. “You’ve got to get the job done. We played hard and we played well, but it’s disheartening when you don’t win a game like that.”
The defeat continued a season-opening run of bad luck for Roy, who has had virtually no margin of error in his first five starts. The Thunder has yet to score more than two goals in any game for Roy, who fell to 0-3-2 despite compiling a save percentage of .914 and a goals-against average of 2.35 in those games.
“It’s disappointing, but it’s a part of hockey,” said Roy, who made 24 saves before being beaten in the shootout by Utah’s Jeff LoVecchio and Mitch Fadden. “I have to keep working harder and it will come. I just want to give the team a chance to win.”
The Thunder (2-3-2) certainly had plenty of chances to beat Utah, but Stockton failed to score on seven power plays, missed a penalty shot in overtime and went 0-for-4 during the shootout. Roy, who came out on the short end of an 11-round shootout at Ontario in one of his previous starts, didn’t throw any blame toward his teammates for the lack of offensive support, but Thomas did.
“If I'm a member of the team and I'm one of those players, I'm winning for him," Thomas said. "I'm winning for the guy in net because he’s played well enough every night to get us a win and we haven't rewarded him. Those guys have to feel like they let him down.”
It appeared that Roy might get a sudden reward when Thunder winger Garet Hunt was granted a penalty shot in overtime, but Hunt was stopped by Utah goalie Andrew Engelage, who out-dueled Roy by making 25 saves during regulation time and overtime before being perfect in the shootout.
“I’m upset with the fact I didn’t score,” Hunt said. “It’s frustrating that we didn’t win for (Roy). He played awesome.”
Prior to Hunt’s penalty shot, Roy made a game-saving stop with slightly less than two minutes remaining in the third period, when he beat Utah’s Brett Ferguson on a short-handed breakaway after Thunder defenseman Nathan Deck caught an edge and fell down while trying to keep the puck in the Utah zone during a Stockton power play. Roy also stopped a short-handed breakaway bid by LoVecchio with 4:19 left in the second period.
“They got more opportunities on our power plays than we got against them,” Thomas said. “We shot ourselves in the foot a lot. We made poor decisions that killed momentum and we took penalties when we were on the power play. You can’t do that.”
The Thunder outshot Utah 14-4 in the first period, but failed to put anything past Engelage. Stockton appeared to snap the scoreless tie when Ryan Martindale put the puck in the Utah net at 3:48 of the second period, but the apparent goal was disallowed because the net had been dislodged.
Martindale rang a shot off the crossbar about three minutes later, and Engelage kept the game scoreless by stopping Stockton’s Kevin Baker on a breakaway as Baker came out of the penalty box with 2:06 remaining before the second intermission.
Utah (7-1-0) enjoyed six power-play opportunities but each was killed by the Thunder, which yielded little in its own end of the rink.
“We played well defensively, we just need to finish our chances,” Roy said. “If we keep playing the way we did, the wins are going to come.”
NOTES:
Earlier in the week, Thunder defenseman Dan Ringwald was loaned to the Oklahoma City Barons of the American Hockey League.
Thunder captain Jason Morgan, who was out of the lineup because of a groin injury, was behind the Stockton bench as an assistant coach.
The ice at Stockton Arena was tinted pink for Friday’s game and Stockton players wore pink-trimmed jerseys as part of Thunder Goes Pink VI, an event and fund-raiser for breast cancer awareness. The pink theme will remain in place Saturday and the jerseys will be sold at a live auction following the game.
