ELMIRA, NY – One night after grabbing a 1-0 series lead, the Greenville Road Warriors are back on First Arena ice to battle the Elmira Jackals in Game Two of their Eastern Conference Quarterfinals series. It’s the final game in Elmira before the scene shifts back to Greenville.
RECAPPING THE ACTION:
4/5/11 – GRW 5 – ELM 2
The Road Warriors turned a dominant performance on special teams into their first-ever Kelly Cup Playoffs win and took a 1-0 series lead over the Elmira Jackals on Tuesday night. After a fight between T.J. Reynolds and Brian Lebler 1:57 into the game, the Road Warriors picked up a 5-on-3 power play advantage with just over 13 minutes left in the frame. Thirteen seconds into that advantage Jimmy Kilpatrick fired home a PPG for a 1-0 Greenville advantage. The lead was pumped up by Brandon Wong’s power play score at 14:04 and it remained at two thanks to Nic Riopel‘s six saves in the frame. Elmira struck first in the second, 2:53 in, with Justin Donati banging home a back door feed, but former Jackal Brendan Connolly re-upped Greenville’s two goal lead at 9:27. After a month-long stay in the AHL, Mark Voakes returned to the Road Warriors’ lineup and punched home a PPG with 56 seconds left in the second and lifted the Road Warriors to a 4-1 lead. That was trimmed to two goals with Josh Brittain deflecting a shot past Riopel 5:40 into the third. Despite a pair of power play chances, Elmira could not climb any closer and Marc-Olivier Vallerand salted away the win with an empty net score at 19:44. Riopel turned in 30 saves for his first pro playoff victory.
WHAT’S ON TAP FOR TONIGHT:
The Greenville Road Warriors and Elmira Jackals are playing Game Two of their best-of-five quarterfinals series. The Road Warriors took a 1-0 series lead with a 5-2 win last night in their first visit to First Arena. Including the regular season, Greenville scored five goals against Elmira for the third consecutive game. With a 3-for-4 effort, the Road Warriors improved to 8-for-17 (47%) against the Jackals. The Road Warriors finished the regular season as the top seed in the Eastern Conference with a 46-22-4 record while Elmira was eighth at 32-30-10. Elmira lost five straight games to close out the regular season while Greenville won each of its last six games.
This series is a classic matchup of offense versus defense. Elmira boasts the league’s top scorer in Justin Donati (94 points) and the league’s fourth-best offense at 3.45 goals per game. Greenville can score, too, but its hallmark is defense. The Road Warriors have the second-best team GAA in the league at 2.67 and were one of only two teams in the league to allow less than 200 goals on the season.
– 12 Road Warriors players are playing in the Kelly Cup Playoffs for the first time. Nine of those are rookies.
– Five of the seven first-round series in last year’s Kelly Cup Playoffs went all five games with the higher seed winning two.
– Greenville’s offense featured five different players that registered at least 50 points in the regular season. The only team with more was Kalamazoo (6).
– Nic Riopel won each of his final five starts of the regular season. It was his longest win streak of the campaign and second only to Dov-Grumet Morris‘ seven straight wins from 11/18-12/5/10.
– Road Warriors were 8-for-25 (32%) on the power play and 18-for-21 (85.7%) on the penalty kill over their six-game win streak to close out the regular season.
Mark your calendars! The Road Warriors return to home ice for Game Three of their quarterfinals series with Elmira on Friday, April 8. Start time is set for 7:05 p.m. at the BI-LO Center. Pre-game festivities begin at 5:00 p.m. with a block party on the plaza outside of the Charter Business Entrance. Free food from Quaker Steak and Lube, as well as half-priced beer, will be available for anyone holding a ticket to the game and RetroVertigo will be playing a free concert. Individual tickets start as low as $9 and can be purchased at the BI-LO Center Box Office or any Ticketmaster outlet. Groups of 10 or more get discounted tickets and preferred seating based on availability. Group outings can be booked by calling 864-674-PUCK.
