The Alaska Aces are going to have to make some history or their 2011-12 ECHL hockey season will soon be history.
The Las Vegas Wranglers collected their third straight win over the Aces with Tuesday night's 3-2 win at Sullivan Arena, which earned the visitors a 3-1 lead in the best-of-7 Western Conference finals.
Only four times in the 24-season history of the league has a team come back from a 3-1 series deficit and won it.
Game 5 is Wednesday night at Sullivan and the Aces, who fashioned the league's best home-ice record in the regular season but are 1-3 at home in the playoffs, must win to force a Game 6 Friday at Sullivan.
The Aces, who got an extra-attacker goal from defenseman Chad Anderson with five seconds left, have never owned the lead in the last three games of the series.
Wranglers goaltender Joe Fallon made 24 saves Tuesday, has permitted six goals in the series and stopped 106 of 112 shots (.946 save percentage).
For the third time in the series, the Wranglers opened the scoring in the first five minutes when former Ace Judd Blackwater, unattended in the slot, backhanded in a rebound of Michael Busto's drive from the right point past Gerald Coleman (21 saves). That goal, just 1:49 into the game, also marked the second time in the series the Wranglers struck inside the first two minutes.
Blackwater's goal, his second in the last two games, quieted the crowd, which didn't have much to cheer about in the first period.
Although shots on goal were even at nine apiece through 20 minutes, that stat did not remotely reflect the tenor of the game. Las Vegas created sustained pressure in Alaska's zone on several shifts, but Alaska had just two shifts of sustained pressure. Alaska's shots were almost entirely long-range bids.
The second of those sequences ended with another Las Vegas goal, this one from Eric Lampe, who authored the overtime winner in Sunday's 3-2 Las Vegas victory.
After Brian Swanson's line generated some zone time, Adam Miller answered with a hard, long, accurate cross-ice pass from the left-wing boards deep in his own zone and hit the speedy Lampe in full flight on right wing. Lampe cut in behind Aces defenseman Bryan Miller and beat Coleman stick-side with a wrister from the right circle for a 2-0 Wranglers lead.
That goal was a crowd killer, and it gave the Wranglers a 6-1 margin in first-period scoring in the series.
And the Wranglers nearly padded their margin late in the period when Lampe and Miller busted into the offensive zone on a 2-on-1. Lampe, on right wing, fed the puck left to Miller, who cut to the slot and whipped a backhand on net, trying to squeeze it five-hole. Coleman snapped his pads together to freeze the puck just in front of the goal line.
Things only got worse for the Aces, and quickly, in the second period.
Winger Scott Howes, who didn't take the morning skate because of illness and at that point was not expected to play but was later inserted in the lineup, did not appear to be on the bench in the second period. He did come out for the third period.
And in the opening minute of the period, center Ryan Cruthers left the ice with trainer Ian Sandercock. Cruthers returned midway through the period, though he seemed to have a hitch in his stride.
By then, Las Vegas owned a 3-0 lead, courtesy of Peter MacArthur's backhand rebound goal seven minutes into the period. That goal came on a rebound of a backhand by former UAA winger Josh Lunden.
The Aces finally got the crowd into it in the last minute of the period, when winger Dan Kissel scored a highlight-reel goal off the rush.
Kissel took a pass from Wes Goldie, split defensemen Barry Goers and Jamie Fritsch -- and those guys aren't warm bodies, but guys who played a combined 41 American Hockey League games this season -- and beat Fallon to the stick-side to close the gap to 3-1.
Find Doyle Woody's blog at adn.com/hockeyblog or call him at 257-4335.
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