Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, November 25, 1993 TAG: 9311250102
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B1 EDITION: HOLIDAY
SOURCE: RANDY KING STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
More size, more muscle, another defenseman and a hot goaltender are at the top of Anzalone's most wanted list.
Until Anzalone is lucky enough to secure at least one of the above, the expansion Express is going to have a difficult time avoiding the basement in the tough Eastern Division of the East Coast Hockey League.
"We're a small team that is forced to play more of a European-style game right now," said Anzalone, whose club was 6-9 heading into Wednesday night's game in Richmond. "That isn't by design. I'd rather be big and play more of a stand-up, North American-style game. It's just the type of play of players we have.
"To make it work, we're going to have to be up or stay very close in games. It will be hard to come back in games. We may have a game sometime where we're down and come back, but it's going to be a rarity. For the most part, when we're down [the other clubs] can hold our smaller guys up pretty well."
Anzalone desperately needs some additional size and muscle to help captain Dave "Moose" Morissette muck the corners and stand up to the bigger, more physical outfits in the ECHL.
"I thought we may have a couple of big guys coming from San Jose [Roanoke's NHL farm club]," Anzalone said. "But I haven't heard anything yet."
Until some new bodies can be uncovered, the Express will have to run with what it's got. It leaves Roanoke with little margin for error, Anzalone said.
"We're just going to have to work, work and work and don't stop," Anzalone said. "That's how you win when maybe you shouldn't win every night. We're just going to have to find ways to win.
"It looks like we're going to lose sight of the top [of the ECHL East] a little bit now. We've just got to start pecking along now. That's all you can do.
"We're not losers. We've just been losing. We'll do our best to improve our team, whether it be through technology or whether it be through changes."
A hot goalie could cure a lot of woes, Anzalone said. Roanoke's 4.97 goals-against average ranks last in the East and 14th overall in the ECHL.
"Hopefully, sooner or later, our goalies are going to get really hot and they're going to be able to stop some shots we give up on mistakes," Anzalone said. "We play well, we play poor. And when we play poor it's in our net.
"Meanwhile, what's really hilarious is that we haven't run into one loose goaltender yet except the night we beat Charlotte (a 7-5 win on Oct. 28). That's just the way it goes."
\ THANKSGIVING FEAST: The Express expects one of the season's largest home crowds for tonight's meeting with Hampton Roads. The Roanoke franchise has never lost on its traditional Thanksgiving home date since the ECHL was formed in 1988-89, winning five straight. Even last season's woeful Rampage rose to the Turkey Day task, ripping Richmond 8-2.
But something will have to give this time. Including a 5-3 win earlier this season in Norfolk, coach John Brophy's Admirals are 21-1-3 vs. Roanoke since the 1989-90 season.
\ EXPRESSIONS: A short-circuiting power play hasn't aided Roanoke's cause lately. The Express was 0-for-11 on the power play in last week's three-game home stand and had failed to score on 14 straight manpower-advantage situations heading into Wednesday's game in Richmond. The power-play outage coincided with the Russians' recent scoring slump. Over the past four games, Oleg Yashin has one goal on 19 shots, Ilja Dubkov has no goals on only nine shots and two assists and Lev Berdichevsky has one assist. . . . Roanoke continues to suffer from the middle-period blues. The Express has been outscored 27-16 in the second period this season. Roanoke is even (22-22) in first periods, plus-1 (27-26) in third periods.
\ ICE CHIPS: The fact it resides in the ECHL's strongest division hasn't made the Express' first-year task any easier. The East Division's seven clubs entered Wednesday's action with a combined record of 60-38-8. In contrast, the six-team North Division is 47-37-5; the six-team West is 36-48-7. The East also is dominating at the gate as South Carolina (8,815), Hampton Roads (7,621), Charlotte (7,573) and Greensboro (6,216) lead the league in average attendance. . . . Erie's Stephane Charbonneau became the seventh player in ECHL history to score five goals in a game in the Panthers' 10-5 romp over Dayton last Friday. Hampton Roads' Tom Bissett (1989-90) and Toledo's Brad McCaughey (91-92) share the league record of six goals in one game.
by CNB