Phoenix mistakes magnified in defeat

Tim Graham

Thursday, April 18, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.

The Phoenix Roadrunners learned a valuable, yet costly, lesson in losing 5-4 to the Las Vegas Thunder Wednesday night in Game 1 of the IHL Western Conference quarterfinals: Never ease up.

"We played good for 50 minutes, but gave them some good chances," said Roadrunner Jeff Shevalier, who scored two goals, including one with 35.4 seconds left to play. "When we made a mistake they put it in the net."

Las Vegas now leads the best-of-5 series 1-0, but it was hard to detect any foreshadowing early on.

The Roadrunners outplayed the Thunder in the first 25 minutes, building a 3-1 lead with 17:22 left in the second period. A few mistakes later and the Thunder was up 4-3 entering the second intermission.

"I think if we do some things differently in the second period it would have been a different story," Phoenix coach Rob Laird said.

The Thunder scored a pair of goals in a span of 3:19 in the second to tie the game at 3. The first, a power-play goal from Sergei Zholtok, was foreseeable. It was the second that blind sided the Roadrunners.

Twenty-three seconds after Jeff Ricciardi was whistled for interference, the Thunder's Joe Day netted a short-handed goal to even the score.

"That team feeds off momentum," Laird said of the Thunder. "They scored that short-handed goal. They fed off that.

"Giving them a 3-1 rush at that point in time wasn't what we set out to do. They're a team that capitalizes on rushes. We need to limit that. We're aware of their offensive power short-handed."

Las Vegas scored 37 goals with a disadvantage during the regular season.

According to Shevalier, Day was able to score this time because of a complete breakdown by Phoenix.

"All five guys did something wrong," Shevalier said. "I didn't pick up my guy behind the net. You can't make mistakes like that against this team."

In addition to giving up the short-handed score, the Roadrunners were 1 of 5 in power-play situations and were outshot 36-25.

"I don't think anybody is too discouraged (about) finding a way to beat this team," Laird said.

Especially not Shevalier, who thinks he knows the solution.

"We did forecheck pretty good, but we need to do the little things better," he said. "We need to play 60 minutes and we can't have any mental lapses. We need to go back to Phoenix, have a couple good practices and come back here ready for Game 2 on Monday."