BY MIKE MASTOVICH
What will it take for the Johnstown Chiefs to defeat the Cincinnati Cyclones?
The Chiefs only have two more shots at the North Division regular-season champions, both on home ice, including Friday’s 7 p.m. game at Cambria County War Memorial Arena.
So far, the Chiefs have a big goose egg against Cincinnati, as in 0-for-8.
Not even a stunning two-goal outburst in the first four minutes of Wednesday morning’s game at U.S. Bank Arena was enough to propel the Chiefs past the Cyclones.
Johnstown took a couple penalties within a 32-second span, and the Cyclones’ league-best power-play unit converted on both ends of the 5-on-3 situation to knot the game at 2.
From there, Cincinnati added two more power-play tallies in a 4-3 victory.
“We’d like to have a better record against them. We’d have liked to have gotten a couple points out of these past two games,” Chiefs coach Ian Herbers said. “We played well against them these last two games. We have to build off of that for the game Friday. Those games early in the year don’t mean as much now as the ones at the end, going into the playoffs.”
The Cyclones have outscored the Chiefs by a combined 36-15. But the past two games were decided by one goal, and three others were decided by two. The blowouts all occurred at U.S. Bank Arena (8-2 on Dec. 16; 6-2 on Dec. 14; and 5-2 on Feb. 22).
Herbers believes that the Chiefs have made strides against the Cyclones, even while playing minus several key members currently in the AHL.
“I thought we built a lot of confidence the last two games,” the coach said. “Five-on-5 we dominated them. We scored five goals to their one when we skated 5-on-5. It came down to specialty teams in the two games.
“I’m proud of the guys’ work ethic and determination. We just fell a little short.”
Against Johnstown, the Cyclones have relied on Barret Ehgoetz (four goals, nine assists, 13 points), Mathieu Aubin (6-6-12), Oliver Latendresse (4-5-9), David Desharnais (0-8-8) and Jean-Michel Daoust (5-3-8). Latendresse, Desharnais and Aubin each had four-point games on Wednesday.
“Cincinnati has speed and skilled forwards,” Herbers said. “They have three lines that can score goals. They wait for a transition and turnovers and they capitalize the majority of the time.”
The Chiefs must figure out a way to beat Cincinnati if they hope to make a playoff run. If Johnstown holds onto either the No. 4 or No. 5 playoff spots in the North, and if the Chiefs win the first-round series between the fourth and fifth seeds, top-seeded Cincinnati would await them in the next round.
Of course, Herbers won’t look that far ahead. He’s more concerned about Friday.
“These past two games at the end, we were close,” Herbers said. “The last two minutes in the first game (Monday) we had it in their zone pretty much the entire time. We couldn’t get the tying goal. We had some opportunities and we just couldn’t finish it (Wednesday). We battled until the end. We didn’t quit. We kept going after them. We played right until the final buzzer.”
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New faces: Forward Joel Gasper had his first professional point in his first game with the Chiefs on Wednesday. Gasper recently finished his NCAA season at Robert Morris University, where he had seven assists and 41 penalty minutes in 22 games this season.
The Crookston, Minn., native assisted on Alexandre Imbeault’s goal 2:51 into the morning game at U.S. Bank Arena. Gasper shot the puck out of the left-wing corner, banking it off Cyclones goaltender Cody Rudkowsky right to Imbeault.
“Joel played with Imbeault and Rowe and played well,” Herbers said of the 6-foot-2, 205-pounder. “He has some size and he can skate. He works hard.”
Zach Kane played his second game with the Chiefs on Wednesday. The Jamestown, N.Y., native also appeared in three games with Elmira and 31 contests with the MAHL’s Jamestown Vikings this season.
Kane had scored eight goals, 33 points and 135 penalty minutes in 31 MAHL games.
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Winging it: The Chiefs will wear throwback jerseys to honor the former Johnstown Wings during Friday’s game against Cincinnati at the War Memorial.
Johnstown will wear replica Johnstown Wings jerseys from the 1978-79 season. The Wings played one season before giving way to the Johnstown Red Wings in 1979-80.
That was the final year of pro hockey in Johnstown until the Chiefs arrived in January 1988.
The throwback jerseys will be auctioned off after the game.
The Chiefs and Wheeling Nailers will play at 5 p.m. on Easter. Children age 11 and younger will be admitted free.
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Point man: Cincinnati’s Desharnais had his 27-game point streak snapped during a 6-0 loss to Trenton on March 13. The streak began on New Year’s Eve and included 11 multiple-assist games and 15 multiple-point games.
Desharnais made up for the scoreless outing on Wednesday. The ECHL’s leading scorer assisted on all four Cyclones goals.
Mike Mastovich is a sports writer for The Tribune-Democrat.
