Salt Lake Rallies to Dump the Gulls

Trying to win a season-high fourth consecutive International Hockey League game, the Gulls clung to a one-goal lead for more than half the game before losing, 3-2, to the Salt Lake Golden Eagles in front of 2,714 at the Delta Center in Salt Lake City, Utah.

After the Gulls took a 2-0 lead midway through the first period and Salt Lake made it 2-1 two minutes later, neither team scored until 6 1/2 minutes into the third period. Salt Lake’s Shawn Heaphy scored the winner with 5:49 left, giving the Eagles their first victory in 10 games.

Salt Lake (2-10-1) had not won since taking the second of a two-game season-opening series in San Diego on Oct. 3-4. The Gulls (7-7) had not lost in nine days and had beaten Salt Lake in two of their three meetings this season, including 6-5 on Saturday. Still, the Gulls, who have won six of the their past nine, remained in third in the IHL Western Division with 14 points. Salt Lake, Calgary’s farm club, is last with five points.

Salt Lake outshot the Gulls, 39-21, and it seemed inevitable the Eagles would eventually overcome the 2-1 deficit that stood for 33:12.

“They outworked us,” Gulls Coach Don Waddell said. “We didn’t play that bad, but we stood around a little bit.

“The real key to the game was we sat back and tried to protect a 2-1 lead for too long.”

Keith Gretzky gave the Gulls a 1-0 lead 5:54 into the game, scoring off assists from Sergei Starikov and Steve Martinson. It was Gretzky’s third goal of the year and his first in two games since returning from Hamilton, Canada, where he had spent time with his father, Walter, who had a brain aneurysm.

Martinson put the Gulls up 2-0 at 11:29 with his first goal. It came on a power play with the assists going to Brent Sapergia and Darcy Norton.

Salt Lake’s Todd Strueby scored his second goal of the year at 13:45 in the first period to make it 2-1, and after a scoreless second period, Todd Harkins picked up a loose puck in the corner, skated in and slapped a shot by Gulls’ goalie Greg Millen to tie it 6:27 into the third period.

Heaphy’s winner came from the slot off a corner pass from Richard Zemlak, who picked up his second assist of the night.

Trailing for the first time in five days, spanning three games, Sapergia tried to rally the Gulls late but couldn’t get anything past Salt Lake goalie Warren Sharples, who recorded 19 saves to win for the first time in seven games.

Despite recording 36 saves, Millen fell to 2-2.

The Gulls were playing without center Len Hachborn, who was scratched from the starting lineup and did not play because of a stiff neck. Hachborn, who was hit during Saturday’s victory at Salt Lake, is one shy of the club record for consecutive games scoring at least one point. The record is 14. Hachborn is expected to return Thursday when the Gulls play host to the Phoenix Roadrunners at the San Diego Sports Arena.

Without Hachborn on the ice, Dmitri Kvartalnov, the IHL’s leading scorer, was shut down by an Eagle defense that had yielded four goals to Kvartalnov on Saturday.