Knighthawks Roughed Up, 11-9

The Calgary Roughnecks “roughed-up” the Rochester Knighthawks 11-9 tonight at The Blue Cross Arena in a head-to-head battle. With the loss, Rochester sets a new home-loss record, losing the past four home-games in a row, a franchise first. The loss also keeps the K-hawks on the outside, looking in-in their playoff hunt with a now 5-7 record in the East division. With the win, the Roughnecks improve to 7-6 in the West. Dane Dobbie (3+4) led Calgary’s offense with seven points, while forward’s Scott Ranger (3+3) and Jeff Shattler (1+4) followed close behind with six and five points, respectively. Netminder Matt King backed up his offense saving 27 of 36 shots he faced. For the Knighthawks, John Grant Jr. (2+3) had two goals and three assists and Shawn Williams (4+0) also contributed four goals to keep Rochester in the game. In the losing effort, goaltender Pat O’Toole played considerably better than his previous few starts at home and blocked 27 of 38 shots he faced. He also picked up an assist on William’s first goal of the game in the second quarter. The Roughnecks started the contest with a goal from forward Shattler at 2:23 of the first quarter with help from Dobbie to take a 1-0 lead early. Calgary would add another tally at 8:55 of the first on the power-play, when Dobbie put the ball passed Rochester’s O’Toole. After almost 10 minutes of play, the Knighthawks finally answered back with their first goal of the game to minimize Calgary’s lead to 2-1. Steve Toll scored the unassisted goal at 9:26 of the first. Early in the second quarter, both teams exchanged goals to make the score 3-2, Roughnecks. Calgary would score first at 1:26 of the quarter on the power-play, when Captain Josh Sanderson slipped the ball in with help from Shattler (1+1) and Dobbie (0+2), who both picked up there second point of the game each. The Knighthawks would add a goal of their own at 4:07 of the second, shorthanded. Williams picked up his first point of the game on the score, with assists going to Steve Toll (1+1), picking up his second point of the game and O’Toole. At 9:37 and 11:29 of the same quarter, Calgary picked up back to back goals, which gave them the 5-2 edge over the K-hawks. Both goals were on the power play and were scored by Sanderson and Craig Conn. Rochester would not leave the period quiet though, capitalizing on a six-on-five attack that ended with Peter Jacobs scoring with only five seconds left in the half. Craig Point and Grant had assists on the play. The Roughnecks were first to score going in after the break at 6:22 of the third quarter to take a 6-3 lead. Ranger scored his first goal of the game, with assists from Shattler and Sanderson. Again, the two teams would exchange goals only minutes apart. First to the net was Rochester’s Grant, at 10:02 on the powerplay,scoring his 24 goal of the season and making the score 6-4. Shawn Evans picked up a helper on the goal. At 12:31, Calgary’s Dobbie came up with his 29th tally of the season, extending their lead to 7-4. Ranger and Conn picked up assists. The Knighthawks would end the period with two more goals, both by Williams, to put the team only one goal behind, trailing 7-6, at the end of the quarter. Jeff Moleski and Dobbie-again-attacked seconds into the fourth quarter for the Roughnecks to go ahead 9-6. The goals came at eight seconds and 35 seconds into the quarter. Dobbie’s goal was also shorthanded. Rochester came back with two of their own to again trail by one. The first was a power-play goal at 1:08 from Grant, with assists by Shawn Evans and Point. The second goal was less than two minutes later at 2:34 of the fourth to make the score 9-8. Cory Bomberry fed the ball to Point, who capitalized on the shot. After exchanging goals, with Calgary’s Ranger at 9:13 and K-hawks nifty behind-the-back netter from Williams, to make the score 10-9, Rochester was close to tying the score. O’Toole was pulled from the goal to give the Knighthawks the six-on-five advantage. Unfortunately, the Roughnecks stole the ball from Rochester, and after a confusing call by the refs, scored an open-netter to finalize their victory 11-9, with less than three seconds left.