Alaska Aces Hockey

Aces' Carr backstops 3-2 win at Tulsa, his former club

Bouyed by Kevin Carr's 36 saves against his former hockey club and secondary scoring that complemented the usual Peter Sivak goal, the Alaska Aces stretched their road point streak to six games with Wednesday night's 3-2 win over the Tulsa Oilers.

The Aces, who had their 10-game ECHL point streak snapped Sunday at home in a 5-4 loss to league-leading Toledo, extended their road point streak (4-0-2) to tie for the fifth-longest such run in franchise history.

Alaska (14-5-4, .696 winning percentage) has actually been slightly more productive on the road (7-2-2, .727 winning percentage) than it has on home ice at Sullivan Arena (7-3-2, .667).

Its last three opponents — Tulsa, Toledo and Idaho — own a combined winning percentage of .682, and the Aces have gone 3-1-3 in that seven-game stretch.

"It was well-deserved, hard-fought, and it was good to get," Aces coach Rob Murray said by phone after Wednesday's win. "Of late, we're playing all the top teams in the league, and it's a good measuring stick."

Carr measured up Wednesday, as he has most of the season and previously did in two seasons as Tulsa's principal goalie before the Aces acquired him in an offseason trade that sent defenseman Brandon Martell to Oklahoma.

With Aces rookie goalie Michael Garteig on long-term promotion to Utica of the American Hockey League because of an injury to Comets goalie Richard Bachman, Carr has started four straight games and nine of the last 10.

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Carr and the penalty-killing crew in front of him snuffed all five Tulsa power plays, including two in a see-saw third period in which the Aces twice delivered go-ahead goals.

With the game tied 1-1 and the Aces killing a penalty, center Ben Lake sprung Justin Breton on a breakaway. Breton slipped a backhander between the pads of Jamie Phillips, Tulsa's excellent rookie, for Alaska's fifth short-handed goal of the season and a 2-1 lead nearly eight minutes into the period.

The lead lasted all of 35 seconds before Derek Gauthier's rebound goal for Tulsa forged a 2-2 tie.

But 69 seconds later, Lake won a face-off back to defenseman Marc-Andre Levesque, whose seeing-eye shot beat Phillips for a 3-2 Alaska lead.

Breton's goal was his third in the last three games, signaling an awakening for a guy who last season led the Aces in goals with 23, but scored just one — an empty-netter at that — in his first 17 games this season. Levesque's goal was his first of the season and just the ninth by an Aces blueliner in 23 games. Lake's two helpers marked his second two-assist game this season.

Those contributions proved clutch because the Aces can't always count on league-leading scorer Sivak and the veteran right wing's center, Stephen Perfetto, to carry them.

Of course, that duo did deliver Wednesday night. After Phil Brewer's goal on the opening shift of the second period furnished Tulsa (16-8-2) a 1-0 lead, Sivak answered off a Perfetto feed later in the period. The goal was Sivak's league-leading 21st and stretched his goal streak to four games. He has six goals in that span and 14 in the last 11 games.

The Aces started a five-game road trip Tuesday by traveling to Tulsa, a trip complicated when some of their luggage did not arrive on time in Oklahoma City. The missing luggage included Carr's equipment, the team's stick bag and game jerseys — so, fairly critical gear — and prompted the Aces to skip their morning skate Wednesday. The gear arrived in before the game, but the missed morning skate meant the Aces went into warm-ups in the BOK Center without having skated since Sunday.

Alaska continues its road trip with games against the Missouri Mavericks on Friday and Saturday nights and wraps it up with two games against the Rapid City Rush in South Dakota next week.

Shuffling the deck

Perfetto's assist stretched his point streak to his last seven ECHL games — he played three games in the AHL and missed six Aces games during that promotion. He has generated 6-8–14 totals in those seven games. Perfetto was held without a shot on goal for the first time in his 17 Aces games this season.

Sivak improved his point streak to four games, with 6-4–10 totals in that span. Here's how consistent Sivak has been: He has generated consecutive-game goal streaks of five games, four games and four games this season, and his three longest goal droughts are four games, two games and one game.

The Aces have not lost consecutive games in regulation this season.

Newcomer forward Yan-Pavel Laplante had one shot on goal and was minus-1 in his Aces debut. The Aces released forward Andrew Miller to make roster room for Laplante, who was assigned to the Aces from Utica by the Vancouver Canucks, to whom Laplante is under contract. Miller played just four games for the Aces and had not played in more than a month.

Aces winger Tyler Ruegsegger suffered an upper-body injury in the first period and did not return.

Aces 0  1  2   3

Tulsa 0  1  1   2

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First Period — None. Penalties — Stewart, Aces (boarding), :59; Clark, Tulsa, major (fighting), 5:32; Hunt, Aces, major (fighting), 5:32.

Second Period — 1, Tulsa, Brewer 7 (Cunningham, Clark), :34; 2, Aces, Sivak 21 (Perfetto, Tarasuk), 15:16. Penalties –Sivak, Aces (tripping), 5:52; Clark, Tulsa (holding), 5:52; Moynihan, Aces (cross-checking), 12:04.

Third Period — 3, Aces, Breton 4 (Lake), 7:54 (sh); 4, Tulsa, Gauthier 3 (Noreau, Ladd), 8:29; 5, Aces, Levesque 1 (Lake), 9:38. Penalties — Lauwers, Aces (slashing), 6:03; Lauwers, Aces (tripping), 13:10.

Shots on goal – Aces 12-6-5—23. Tulsa 11-15-12—38.

Power-play Opportunities – Aces 0 of 1. Tulsa 0 of 5.

Goalies – Aces, Carr, 7-4-3 (38 shots-36 saves). Tulsa, Phillips, 15-4-1 (23-20).

A – 3,790 (17,096). T – 2:35.

Referee — Stephen Reneau. Linesmen — Ross Coll, Chip Excell.

Doyle Woody

Doyle Woody covered hockey and other sports for the Anchorage Daily News for 34 years.

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