Komets Stop Gulls’ Winning Streak

The Gulls found out Thursday that extending their winning streak to a club-record five games would be about as easy as stopping a few Komets. But not eight of them. The Fort Wayne Komets got goals from eight different players in their 8-4 victory over the Gulls at Allen County Memorial Coliseum.

A crowd of 8,103 saw the first-place Komets (16-4-1, 33 points in the International Hockey League East) broke open a 4-4 tie in the third period and stop the Gulls’ winning streak at four games, which had equaled a club record.

The Gulls were sparked by left wing Dmitri Kvartalnov. Coming off a hat trick Wednesday against Milwaukee, Kvartalnov made it five goals in two nights with two goals and an assist.

But the third-place Gulls (13-11-0, 26 points in the IHL West) had a club-record low of 12 shots on goal--two in the first period, three in the third--and hurt themselves with penalties after center Len Hachborn scored to make it 4-4 at the 2:23 mark of the third period.

“Our offense got us back into the game again, but then we took a couple of bad penalties,” Coach Don Waddell said. “I’ve said all along, if we play five-on-five we’ll win a lot of games. But the penalties hurt us.”

Gulls wing Brent Sapergia was called for slashing and high sticking, setting up a four-minute power play for the Komets. Fort Wayne failed to score with the man advantage, but the penalty killing apparently took the speed out of the Gulls offense. Cory Kocur scored 23 seconds after Hachborn’s goal to make it 5-4. Colin Chin, Kelly Hurd and Peter Hankinson (with 17 seconds left) added goals.

The Komets outshot the Gulls, 31-12, and 16-3 in the final period, but couldn’t shake the Gulls early. Kvartalnov, who leads the league in goals (23) and passed Hachborn (39) for the IHL lead in points with 40, scored twice in the second period to cut Fort Wayne’s lead to 2-1 and 3-2.

Gull Ray Whitney tied it at 3-3 before Scott Gruhl answered with less than a minute left in the period to make it 4-3, Komets. But the Gulls were not heard from after Hachborn made it 4-4 with his 13th goal.

Said Waddell, “Most of the game was played in the neutral zone, so there wasn’t a lot of scoring opportunities. But you still have got to shoot the puck more than that to win.”