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May 12, 2007

Monarchs 4, P-Bruins 3

MANCHESTER, N.H. — It’s not where they want to be, but it’s where the Providence Bruins have been before and lived to tell about it.

The P-Bruins find themselves a game away from elimination, as a result of last night’s 4-3 loss to the Manchester Monarchs, in Game Five of their best-of-seven Atlantic Division final.

Providence trails the series, 3 games to 2, which is precisely where they were in the semifinal set with Hartford. The P-Bruins came back with two straight wins, both on enemy ice, to oust Hartford. Now they’ll have to pull off a similar feat, although the crucial Game Six will be played at the Dunkin’ Donuts Center tomorrow night.

“It helps to know that we’ve done it before,” said P-Bruins center Ben Walter. “Obviously we’d rather not be in this position. We’d rather be up 3-2.”
Said Providence coach Scott Gordon, “Just because you’ve done it before, that doesn’t make it easy."

To square the series, Providence will have to avoid the undisciplined penalties that plagued them last night. Officially, the P-Bruins successfully killed off all nine power plays handed to Manchester. Most of those penalties, however, were of the undisciplined, momentum-killing variety. That was what irked Gordon the most.

“Five power plays in the second period are not going to help your cause,’’ he said. “All of them were selfish penalties. We addressed that in the second period when it was 2-2, and we didn’t make it any better in the third.”

It was in that final stanza that Manchester seized control with goals by Marty Murray and Patrick O’Sullivan. Murray’s tally, which came at 4:46, put Manchester ahead to stay. Until then, it was a game very much up for grabs.

Matters were frenetic in the both opening and closing seconds of the opening period, with a high-octane pace in between. The teams traded goals in the opening 55 seconds, with Manchester’s Tim Jackman scoring at the 28-second mark on a goal-mouth scramble. But that was answered promptly by Jeff Hoggan, who made a strong rush down the right boards, fending off Monarch defenseman Doug Nolan, then muscling a backhander past goalie Jason LaBarbera.

Providence proceeded to take the lead at the 19:59 mark, on a play that began with Nate Thompson winning the puck along the right boards. Thompson dished out to Marco Rosa, who in turn found Nate DiCasmirro unguarded at the left post.

DiCasmirro tapped the puck into the open net with no time showing on the clock. But the red goal light had come on, and the tally, which made it 2-1, was allowed.

The P-Bruins’ penalty killers were kept busy in the second period, as they were forced to skate off four straight shortages in the first half of the stanza. They had just polished off the last of those when, at 13:40, Manchester’s O’Sullivan wrested a shot from center ice that crossed up Toivonen and slipped in under the crossbar, knotting the score at 2-2.

After falling behind by two goals, Providence got a tally from David Krejci with 19.5 seconds remaining.

“We’re not playing as well as we should be,” said Jay Leach. “The outlook is that we’re going into Game Six like we were the first series. But the bottom line is that we’ve got to play better."

DAN HICKLING

Posted by Chris Venditto  at 11:29 PM to P-Bruins | Permalink

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