It’s over: Tornado eliminated 5-1
04/11/2008
by John Tranchina 

With their backs against the wall, the Texas Tornado came out playing inspired hockey, but in the end, they fell short and were eliminated from the NAHL playoffs. 

After taking a 1-0 lead into the second period, the Tornado were done in by their Achilles’ heel all season, surrendering four power play goals en route to a 5-1 loss to the Topeka Roadrunners Friday night at the DejaBlue Arena in the Frisco Dr Pepper StarCenter. 

The loss means the Roadrunners complete the sweep and prevail in the best-of-five first-round series three games to none and advance to the next stage while the Tornado’s season is over. 

Trailing 2-0 in the series after dropping the first two games last weekend in Topeka by a combined score of 13-2 to the South Division champions, Texas looked to be in good shape early and seemed to be on their way to extending the series.  But the Tornado couldn’t stay out of the penalty box and ultimately succumbed to a superior opponent with a good chance to advancing deep in the post-season. 

“I think that tonight tells the tale of the whole series,” Tornado coach Dwight Mullins said after his team was outscored 10-0 in the three contests’ second periods.  “We just could not seem to get out of the second period with a chance to win the hockey game in the third.  Loose pucks, give up bad pucks, take a penalty and you can’t put them on the power play and it was kind of the same tale there.  We did have opportunities and for the most part in the first part of the game, our power play was doing well and then we ran into problems.  It’s been our nemesis pretty much all year.” 

Sean Roadhouse scored the Tornado’s only goal in his final appearance in junior hockey, as Texas once again had difficulty solving Topeka star goaltender Bryce Merriam, who made 17 saves and was named the game’s first star. 

The Tornado had a surprise starter in their own crease, 16-year-old Adam Brown, who was solid in his NAHL debut, stopping 28 shots.  Added to the roster from the Dallas Stars Midget AAA squad that lost in the USA Hockey Tier 1 national quarterfinals last weekend, Brown was inserted into the lineup in an effort to spark the Tornado and performed well under difficult circumstances. 

“I thought Adam really was solid, with the exception of maybe the last four or five minutes,” Mullins said.  “I thought, for a ‘91 to come in with this kind of pressure, I really thought he gave us a chance to win early.  I really thought he had a good presence, I really liked where the game was heading, and can’t really say anything too much about the goals, other than maybe that last one.” 

After an outstanding first period, the Tornado took a 1-0 lead into the second, but things began to unravel on them as they again spent some time in the penalty box and Topeka punished them for it, outshooting Texas 17-2 in the period and emerging from it with a 3-1 edge.   

Led by a goal and two assists from defenseman Aaron Gens, and two assists each from Jordan George and Josh Kamrass, the Roadrunner power play was lethal.  Overall on the night, Topeka went 4-for-9 on the power play, a level of success that coach Scott Langer indicated did not come as easily as it looked. 

“We have some guys that do some different things,” said Langer of the PP unit that was a stellar 8-for-21 in the series overall.  “We have good vision, Josh Kamrass does a good job, and once we got the puck to Gens tonight, which Texas has denied us all series, it all clicked.  The coaching staff over there has done a real good job countering our power play, we had to make changes almost every period of this series.”   

The Roadrunners started taking back the game just 2:08 into the second, on Eriah Hayes’ third goal of the series, on a man advantage.  George controlled the puck behind the net and fed a quick pass out front to Hayes at the lip of the crease, and Hayes banged a quick one-timer past Brown for the 1-1 tie.  

“As soon as Hayes scored that first goal, you could feel it on the bench, there was a switch of momentum in our favor,” Langer said.  “We weren’t used to, in the second half of the season, to playing from behind, and once we got to score, we kind of settled in.” 

Later in the period, with Topeka on another power play, Gens blasted a devastating one-timer from just inside the blue line that zipped past a screened Brown to make it 2-1 at the 9:48 mark.   

Just 25 seconds later, Brown came up with a big stop on John Stoddard’s wrist shot from the slot to keep it a one-goal game.

Brown then denied Bryon Paulazzo from the right side of the crease and then George’s point-blank rebound chance on a power play with 2:32 left in the period.   

Then, 21 seconds after another power play expired, Topeka continued to control the puck in the Texas zone and picked up another goal.  After Gens’ slapper from the point was deflected, the puck rolled into the slot and Reed Seckel swatted the loose rebound under the outstretched arms of a lunging Brown to give the Roadrunners a 3-1 lead with 1:13 remaining.

 “I absolutely have no answer.  If I had the answer, I would have fixed it a long time ago,” Mullins said of the Tornado’s second-period woes in the series.  “We’ve tried standing up and spinning to the left and sitting three seats to the right and everything else.  I think we were okay until we started to take bad penalties.  I have to question a couple a little bit, but you can’t do that with them and they’re going to hurt you and that’s kind of the tale of the game.” 

Going into the final period down by two, the Tornado tried to apply the offensive pressure, but seemed out of sync and were unable to generate any prime scoring chances.  Their best opportunity came about 8:20 into the third, when Andrew Blazek and Rob Cifelli had back-to-back shots in close as they tried to jam a loose puck past Merriam during a mad scramble in front. 

The Roadrunners then salted the game - and the series - away with two more goals in a 42-second span late in the period. 

First, on another power play, George fed a pass from beside the right goalpost out to Corey Jendras in the high slot, and the resulting one-timer ended up behind Brown with 5:45 to go. 

Then, with 5:02 left and Topeka on yet another man-advantage, Tom Kleidon’s slap shot from the point found its way under Brown and in to account for the final score. 

Things went about as good as could be hoped for in the first period, as Texas killed off two Topeka power plays, and had three of their own, capitalizing on a 5-on-3 advantage to take an early lead.   

Sergei Korostin had an outstanding opportunity to snap the scoreless tie while on a power play with 7:15 remaining in the period, as he sped into the Topeka zone on the rush and unleashed a wicked wrist shot from the right face-off circle.  It was ticketed for the upper right corner, but Merriam got just enough of his arm on it to deflect it up over the net. 

It took the Tornado just 22 seconds into a 1:14 5-on-3 advantage to jump out to the 1-0 lead, as Roadhouse connected with 1:35 remaining in the first period.  Sam Goodwin carried the puck behind the Topeka net and in a sneaky exchange, handed the puck off to Roadhouse coming the opposite direction, so while Merriam looked one way expecting Goodwin to come around the other side, Roadhouse quickly executed the wrap-around and deposited the puck inside the left post. 

Still with a one-man advantage, the Tornado almost got a second one as Tyler Bowman raced into the Roadrunners’ zone and fired a quick wrister from the left circle, but Merriam made a huge glove stop with just 14.6 seconds left. 

At that point, things looked good for Texas, but alas, it was not to be. 

“They came out real strong, they made some real good adjustments on their forecheck and we struggled early and they had a lot of intensity,” Topeka coach Langer said of the Tornado in the first period.  “If they would have gotten a couple of those in the back of the net, we would have been in trouble.  We weathered the storm there in the first period and in the second period, our power play made the difference.” 

With the season ending on home ice, Tornado veterans such as Roadhouse and Ryan Fuller, to name just two, played their final games in a Texas jersey, with Roadhouse lingering for a while after the final handshake and finally skating off the ice in tears.

“Sean Roadhouse and Ryan Fuller, they poured their heart and soul into this organization,” Mullins said.  “They’ve seen the very, very good times here and they’ve probably seen some of the worst times here. To their credit, they were committed to our organization and committed to our hockey team.  I would have liked to have hopefully helped them have a little bit better ending, but at the same time, they played with everything that they had and that’s the kind of emotion that has really made them an integral part of the organization.  But for those guys, it’s on to a new chapter and that’s a tough step in life.” 

So that’s it for the 2007-08 season.  What’s next? 

“I think the biggest thing here is to try to get with everybody and we will continue to try to help some kids with college and try to pursue some things beyond this a little bit,” coach Mullins said.  “At the same time, we will start to address our attention to May and to training camps and starting to focus on some key players and start to build.  This is a 365-day-a-year job and we’ll take a day or two off, but other than that, we’ll start moving on to the next chapter.” 

THREE STARS 

3.  Jordan George, Topeka (two assists)

2.  Eriah Hayes, Topeka (one goal, four shots on goal)

1.  Bryce Merriam, Topeka (17 saves)

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