Gulls Lose to Salt Lake, but Playoff Spot Assured

The Gulls knew that, regardless of the result their game Saturday, they could clinch a spot in the International Hockey League playoffs.

But Coach Don Waddell, after citing the playoffs as the primary goal of the 1991-92 season, there wouldn’t be any party favors in the Gulls’ locker room when it happened.

The Gulls clinched Saturday, because Phoenix lost to Peoria. The Gulls also lost, 4-3, to the Salt Lake Golden Eagles. Certainly no cause for revelry.

If Waddell and the Gulls were hooting Saturday, the hoots were directed at referee David Cassidy, who called two penalties against the Gulls that led to the Eagles’ game-winning score with 53 seconds remaining.

With 2:42 left, Darcy Norton was called for hooking, putting Salt Lake on the power play. Twenty-three seconds later, Gull Robbie Nichols was whistled for slashing, giving the Eagles a two-man advantage. Tomas Forslund put in the game-winning goal 1:26 later to hand the Gulls their seventh defeat in 10 games.

“We deserved a better fate,” said Waddell, “but, unfortunately, right at the end the referee decided to put us down, five-on-three. We played a solid game; it’s unfortunate to lose it that way.”

The loss put the Gulls back into a second-place tie with Peoria in the West Division. Both teams have 85 points. The Gulls are 39-24-7 with 12 games left. Peoria is 38-24-9 with 14 games to play. The two teams will face each other in the first round of the playoffs and the question yet settled is who will have home-ice advantage for the seven-game series.

Salt Lake, with 62 points and a 29-34-8 record, is destined to face first-place Kansas City (100 points).

“It is a major accomplishment for this franchise to come this far in two years and make the playoffs this easily,” said Waddell, whose Gulls finished fifth in the West as an expansion team in 1990-91.

The Gulls got two goals from IHL-leader Dmitri Kvartalnov (Nos. 53 and 54) and one from Ray Whitney (32nd), who has a nine-game winning streak.

Gulls Notes

Dave Korol, the Gulls’ 1990-91 defensive MVP, said he will have surgery to repair torn cartilage in his knee Monday . . . center Len Hachborn, who has missed six of the past nine games, is out with an injured tailbone.