They dominated the shots, they dominated the territory, and the other guys won because Wade Flaherty was superb in dominating the entrance to the goal.
Kansas City's Blades - minus coach Kevin Constantine, who stayed in his hotel room because of illness - applied what assistant coach Jim Wiley called the bend-but-don't-break method and came off the Delta Center ice Friday night with a 3-1 victory over the Salt Lake Golden Eagles.It was really a 2-1 game until the Blades came up with an empty-net goal with 11 seconds remaining. That came after missing one empty-net goal with about 30 seconds left because Eagle All-Star defenseman Kevin Wortman sprinted up the ice and caught the puck inches before it went over the goal line. And then Wortman nearly scored on that possession, which would have tied the game and likely meant overtime.
The Eagles outshot Kansas City 39-27. In the second and third periods, they outshot the Blades 30-12. In the second period when KC gained a 2-0 lead, the Eagles were up 13-7 on shots taken. In the third, it was 17-5. The ice had a definite tilt to it toward the Kansas City goal, as that's where players from both teams congregated most of the night.
"What can you do?" said Eagle coach Bob Francis. "The guys played hard. We got stoned. We couldn't put the puck in the net. The only reason I can come up with is Flaherty."
"Our goaltending was brilliant," said Wiley.
Both goals against Eagle All-Star netminder Andrei Trefilov were on the second shot after he'd made the first save. Both times, the succesful shooter managed to slip in unguarded. "We made a couple of mental mistakes early, and then they held on," said Francis. "We didn't pick up the late people on the (scoring) plays."
The Eagles and Blades meet again tonight in the Delta Center. The Eagles are 2-1 vs. KC at home, 1-1 against them in Kemper Arena. Salt Lake dropped to 27-24-3, while the Blades, who have earned 14 of the last 20 points available to them, are 21-22-7. Eagle goalie Trevor Kidd should get tonight's start.