Matt Donovan was freed from the cage; Scott Mayfield was called up from the Black Aces. They played together. They did OK: Mayfield had one kinda scrambly shift on which Jaroslav Halak made a couple of big saves, but he also had one where, after Jason Chimera jumped over his back, Mayfield chased him down and pounded him to the ice. Quite effective. Matt Donovan had a few very effective shifts and, late in the second, seemed to be the victim of an obscure rule that says “if you get shoved by all five opponents after a whistle, you have to sit for 10 minutes.” Confounding. But the Big Club got the win to force Monday’s Game 7 in DC. Colin McDonald drew in and played pretty well. Funny enough, one of the guys who sat out was Anders Lee, the man who replaced McDonald on the roster early in the season.
Back down here, Hartford gave up two quick goals early in the second period to lose 2-1 to Providence, knotting the best-of-5 at 1. The Wolf Pack was credited with just three shots in the third. They turn around and play Sunday and Tuesday in Providence.
Matt Murray made 27 saves in yet another shutout as the Pens beat Syracuse 4-0. In the past 12 games, including the last 10 of the regular season, Syracuse’s only win was April 10, the overtime win against Bridgeport. (The last win before that was also against the Sound Tigers.) Counting the regular season, that’s 13 shutouts for Murray, but of course in that case, you can’t count the regular season. This starts a new clock.
In case you were wondering, it's six by Rochester's Mika Noronen in 2000.
— Jonathan Bombulie (@CVBombulie) April 26, 2015
There you go.
Hershey won both games in Worcester with tonight’s 3-1 win in what could be the last AHL game at DCU Center. Last night’s Tiger-on-Tiger violence drew no further discipline on Jeremy Langlois — three goals-against on his major was enough — but it was enough to keep Steve Oleksy out. Replacement still relevant: Jon Landry drew in.
Craziness in Manchester: the Monarchs had a 2-0 lead 30 seconds into the game to chase Mike McKenna, then Sean Backman scored the first of three in 39 seconds in the third to race past Portland 6-2. Manchester can finish that series Sunday in Portland.
Out West, Toronto opened its series with a 7-4 win over Grand Rapids (think I said yesterday they were all Game 2s; wrong, sorry) behind Josh Leivo’s four-point game. Grand Rapids got Teemu Pulkkinen back from Detroit; he scored two, but he needed three more. San Antonio blew a three-goal lead — five straight Rampage penalties, the last with 40 seconds left, led to three Oklahoma City power-play goals, the last with 36 seconds left — and then former Quinnipiac standout Connor Jones won it in overtime for the Barons. The Barons lead 2-0, but the next one-to-three are in San Antonio. And Rockford put Texas away late — two assists for Ville Pokka; late goal and an assist for Peter Regin — to bring a 2-0 series lead home.
The Gehrig Division comes down to the last day in Philly. (You don’t care.)
And RIP, Jim Fanning.