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Article published Feb 18, 2008 Komets have week to rehash two losses
Each of the three times the Fort Wayne Komets have lost two games in a row this season they’ve come back to go on a tear starting the next game. This time they’ve got a full week of practice to stew after losing 3-2 to Flint in overtime on Saturday and 4-1 at Bloomington on Sunday.
“It’s just like the start of the year, where we outplay a team and outshoot them but couldn’t outscore them,” coach Al Sims said from Bloomington. “Every chance they had tonight was in the net. They must have had five chances all night, and they scored four times.”
Fort Wayne outshot the PrairieThunder 37-16 on Sunday, but Bloomington goaltender Loic Lacasse made 36 saves. He also made 36 saves last week in a 3-2 shootout loss to the Komets in Fort Wayne. The K’s outshot Flint 44-31 on Saturday night, but Matt Spezza made 42 saves.
“We’re making goaltenders look a lot better than they really are,” Sims said. “It was just our inability to score. Last night in Flint we outshot them (14-8) in the third period and it was the same thing.”
Saturday night’s game was odd in that the Komets scored first, held a lead going into the third period and scored two power-play goals but still lost. Before that, they had been 29-1 overall when leading after two periods, including 10-0 on the road. The Komets were also 27-4-2 when scoring first and 23-7-2 when out-shooting opponents before this weekend.
Konstantin Shafranov seemed to be the only Komet with his regular offensive game, scoring two goals and an assist out of Fort Wayne’s three goals over the weekend. He scored the second goal of Sunday’s game.
“We’re a little bit tired and came out a little bit flat, but the effort was there after that,” Sims said. “The travel was tough on our team. We got in at 2 a.m. last night, and we left at 10 a.m. today, so there wasn’t a lot of time for rest. The travel was rough and they got excited, and we just couldn’t battle our way back. We’ve got a long week here to work on some things.”
The Komets are off until Friday when they play at Muskegon in the third of a five-game road stretch. They still lead the International Hockey League by 17 points.
Sims said the K’s will find out more this week, but he doesn’t believe the bruised knee injury suffered by rookie defenseman Brandon Warner on Saturday is very serious.