Peoria Runs Win Streak to 10, Buries Gulls in Third

Just eight games into the home season, the Gulls’ welcome mat is showing some wear and tear.

In a display that sent part of the crowd of 3,422 at the San Diego Sports Arena toward the exits early, the Gulls lost an International Hockey League game to the Peoria Rivermen, 7-3, Thursday night. In the two-game series with the league leaders, the Gulls were outscored, 16-6.

Peoria proved Tuesday night’s 9-3 debacle and its hogging of the IHL’s scoring categories--individual goals, points, assists and goaltending and team scoring--weren’t a fluke.

“We can score,” Peoria Coach Bob Plager said before the game. “We like to do a lot of skating, and we have some guys who forecheck, but we like to score.”

And they are none too shy about it.

The Gulls (5-7-1) hung with Peoria (10-1-0), winners of 10 consecutive games, for two periods--it was 3-3 going into the third--before allowing four goals. It tied the club high for goals yielded in a period--Peoria scored four in the first Tuesday.

In the third, when the Rivermen delivered their most devastating blows, David Bruce, the league’s leader with 14 goals (eight in the last three games), scored 16 seconds into the period, setting the table for the next three Peoria goals.

“(Scoring) 15 seconds into the period,” Gulls Coach Mike O’Connell said, “that shouldn’t happen. . . . We let it develop. We get out of position, we start going to help other players when it wasn’t needed, then (we) let the other guy get away and score.”

Bruce’s goal preceded one by Dave Tomlinson, the second-leading scorer in the IHL with 10 goals, at 1:13. Keith Osborne got his second goal of the night at 2:33, and Kelly Chase added one at 6:34.

The Gulls’ home record dropped to 2-5-1.

The Gulls have lived and died by the power play this season, and they again relied on it to cut Peoria’s 2-0 first-period lead and pull even for the start of the second.

A five-minute game misconduct penalty against Tom Tilly and a two-minute hooking infraction called on Rob Robinson put the Rivermen shorthanded by two.

Darren Lowe took a long pass inside the red line and shoved it to Dennis Holland, who scored at 17:29 into the period.

Still on the power play, with 16 seconds remaining in the period, Holland took a pass from behind the right side of the net, and returning the favor, fed Lowe who tipped it into the open side of the net from the left crease.

Peoria’s Keith Osborne and Michel Mongeau, the league’s MVP last year, scored at 2:54 and 5:35 to put the Rivermen ahead, 2-0.

Lowe’s pulse hadn’t slowed much between the first and second periods, and he scored 24 seconds into the second from a foot, taking a pass from Larry Floyd in the high slot. The goal gave the Gulls a 3-2 advantage. It was Lowe’s third goal of the year, all scored on the power play.

The Gulls’ have converted a league-leading 19 of 70 power-play opportunities, a 27.1% rate. It was the one glimmer of hope in an otherwise bleak performance.

“We’re executing when we need to on the power play,” O’Connell said of their three-for-five record Thursday. “But we have to start scoring five on five.”

The rare lead was treasured for 1:22, until Mongeau’s second goal of the night, at 1:46, to pull Peoria peven at 3-3.

After outshooting opponents in their first nine games, the Gulls have tapered off. They have been outshot in two of their last four.

Goalkeeper Glen Hanlon (3-3) turned away 25 of 32 Peoria shots.

The Gulls travel to Peoria for a game on Saturday.

Gull Notes

If this is Tuesday . . . Only twice have the Gulls played on that day, but both times the results were disastrous, when they dropped 7-0 and 9-3 decisions, their worst losses of the season. Their next Tuesday game? Nov. 27. . . . Peoria dropped its first game of the season, to Kalamazoo, and won its next nine, surpassing the previous club record of seven. Peoria’s first-year coach, Bob Plager, coached with the St. Louis Blues, Peoria’s primary affiliate, last season. . . . The Rivermen lead the league in goals scored, and individually, in goals scored, assists, points, and goaltending. . . . Presto chango: Peoria finished fourth in the West last year, and was eliminated in the first round of the playoffs. . . . Defenseman Steve Dykstra missed his second game because of a knee injury.