By MATT GRAVES, Staff writer First published: Sunday, November 18, 2001
River Rats 2 Falcons 2
ALBANY -- Growing up in Finland, Ari Ahonen became accustomed to cold spells, but he never had one this long as a hockey player.
And just when it appeared it would finally end, the rookie netminder for the River Rats was touched for a long-range goal by Wyatt Smith with only 7:20 left to play as he and the Rats had to settle for a 2-2 overtime tie with Springfield on Saturday night at Pepsi Arena.
The tie ended a four-game losing streak for the Rats (1-12-3), but kept a 10-game winless streak alive going into today's game at Lowell. For Ahonen, it was his seventh pro game without a victory (0-5-2).
"It seems pretty hard to win, not just for me but for the team,'' said Ahonen, who described Smith's second goal of the game as a shot that seemed to dip on him and slipped in under his outstretched left arm. "I can't say that it's frustrating, but it comes to my mind sometimes. I'm used to getting wins and wins, but right now it seems so hard to win one game.''
It was pretty fortunate that the Rats were even in this game after the first period, and Ahonen deserves all the credit for that.
Springfield got on the board at 9:10 of the first when Smith launched a shot high into the right corner of the net with the teams skating 4-on-4.
Over the next 20 minutes, the Falcons (6-9-1) outshot the Rats 20-7 and only the work of Ahonen kept it at 1-0 after Albany had taken an early 4-2 shots edge.
"It was a very poor first period,'' said coach Bobby Carpenter. "They just weren't ready to play, but they recovered well. They had a great second period and the third period, it could have gone either way. We had a lot of chances to score, too. He (goalie Dieter Kochan) didn't make many great saves; we missed more than he made great saves. I think Ari made great saves.''
The Rats came out a lot sharper after the first intermission to score twice in the first six minutes of the period. Stan Gron netted his fifth of the season on a rebound of a Daryl Andrews shot just 1:20 into the period to tie it at 1-1.
Then NHL veteran Stephen Guolla made the play of the night on a 2-on-0 break with rookie Christian Berglund. Guolla skated through the slot and faked Kochan off his skates, then put a drop pass on the stick of Berglund coming in on right wing for the go-ahead goal at 5:52 as Kochan lay on his stomach.
The Rats appeared on the way to their second victory until Smith launched his tying goal from the right circle at 12:40, and neither team was able to score again.
"It's hard. You want to win,'' said captain Sylvain Cloutier. "I mean, we haven't won in a while. It would have been nice to get the two points, but we'll take the one point. We need it.''