Sens vs. Monarchs 2/19/05 Articles: Crazy goal sparks B-Sens
February 20, 2005

Posted by: Bob Howard
Credit: Scott Lauber of Press Connects.com

Crazy goal sparks B-Sens

BY SCOTT LAUBER

Press & Sun-Bulletin

MANCHESTER, N.H. -- Nick Polano has worked in pro hockey for almost a half-century, but even for him, this was a first.

With 18.7 seconds left in the first period of a one-goal game, Binghamton Senators defenseman Christoph Schubert gathered the puck near the faceoff dot in his own zone and fired it almost the length of the ice. It bounced once, skipped by Manchester Monarchs goalie Adam Hauser's glove and stood as a 180-foot, shorthanded game-winner in the Senators' 7-2 victory here Saturday night.

"I've been in this game a long time," said Polano, an Ottawa Senators' scout, "and I've never seen that."

And over the course of their super season, the Eastern Conference-leading but injury-decimated Monarchs haven't suffered a beating like this.

The Senators broke open a 3-2 game with four third-period goals, and Jason Spezza broke his slump of four games without a point with one goal and four assists. Spezza's sidekick, winger Brandon Bochenski, added two goals and two assists to his AHL-leading rookie scoring totals, and Denis Hamel completed a stellar night for that line with one goal and two assists.

But it was Schubert's goal that stunned the 35-12-3-3 Monarchs before Spezza's line provided the knockout punch for the Senators, who've now won back-to-back games on the road after the disappointing 4-0 home loss Thursday night against Bridgeport.

"If I have 10 shots like that, I'll miss nine of them," Schubert said. "I have to be honest. I didn't try to score. Maybe, maybe, I was hoping to put it on net. But it was a lucky shot."

With 11 players and 46 percent of their high-powered offense sidelined by injuries, the Monarchs needed their goalies to be better than ever.

They were anything but.

Hauser, toting the AHL's second-lowest goals-against average (1.87), entered at 11:52 of the first period after Bochenski and winger Arpad Mihaly chased starter Mathieu Garon and his 2.02 goals-against-average with a pair of goals that quieted the sellout crowd of 9,916.

But for as well as the Senators started, Ithaca native Dustin Brown brought the Monarchs to within a goal with a hello-and-goodbye move at 15:47 of the first period. Three minutes later, Senators defenseman Anton Volchenkov was booted from the game and tagged with a five-minute major penalty for elbowing Connor James.

That's when, with the Monarchs buzzing, Schubert let loose his rink-length shot, and Hauser gave it his best Bill Buckner.

"Any time you score a shorthanded goal in a one-goal game, it gives the team a huge boost," said coach Dave Cameron, who said he once saw a similar goal scored in a Canadian college game. "It generated a lot of emotion."

Said Hamel, "I've seen shots from the red line, even from the blue line, but never from that far. The puck made a funny bounce, and (Hauser) probably wasn't expecting it. It got us a little pumped and made us work harder to kill the rest of that penalty."

Still, the Monarchs remained within striking distance, especially after Jeff Giuliano beat goalie Billy Thompson at 10:52 of the second period.

But Senators defenseman Neil Komadoski scored from the low slot off a feed from Spezza 3:58 into the third. Spezza's line took over in the final period, and the Monarchs, who tried to counter with star center Mike Cammalleri's line, had no solution.

"We felt, if we're going to stay in the hunt, one of the things we had to improve on was our road record," Cameron said after the Senators improved to 12-13-2-2 away from the Broome County Veterans Memorial Arena. "That's something we're conscious of."

Slap shots: Among the injured Monarchs is former Senators winger Brad Smyth, who has missed six games with a sprained knee. ... Senators defenseman Jan Platil sat out the third game of a four-game AHL suspension. He's eligible to play in the March 2 home game against Norfolk.