Wednesday, April 10, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.
With several of the IHL's top guns on display, it figured the Thunder and the Chicago Wolves would keep the goal judges busy at the Thomas & Mack Center.
Actually, the 11 goals scored in Las Vegas' 6-5 victory Tuesday night were fewer than expected. The last time these teams met March 15, the red light got lighted 19 times.
But the stars got their share of twine. The Thunder's Sergei Zholtok tallied twice, giving him 49 for the season. Chicago's Rob Brown, the IHL's leading scorer, also scored his 49th of the season in the first period.
That left plenty of time for both players to reach the 50-goal mark, but it was Brown who got there first, reaching the half-century plateau by beating Rick Knickle with just over three minutes remaining to cut the Thunder's lead to one.
However, the Thunder held the Wolves at bay the rest of the way and the win, combined with Orlando's 7-0 loss to Phoenix, gave Chris McSorley's team the home-ice advantage throughout the Turner Cup playoffs and possession of the Fred Huber Trophy, which goes to the team with the IHL's best record.
Las Vegas, which won its 32nd home game of the season, has 116 points with three games to play. If the Thunder can win its last three, it will finish with 122 points, third-best in league history. The 1992-93 San Diego Gulls hold the record with 132 points.
"I was not a happy person after the second period," McSorley said of the 5-4 edge his team was clinging to. "But I'm very happy right now."
McSorley was afraid his team would get into a run-and-shoot game with the Wolves, who are battling to stay ahead of Kansas City for the fifth spot in the Western Conference playoff chase. And with Brown and linemate Steve Maltais pressing all night, the Thunder wound up playing follow-the-leader, freewheeling with Chicago.
"They've got a lot of talent out there," Thunder left wing Ken Quinney said of the Wolves. "And they like to open it up. It's a tough game defensively to handle."
Quinney, who scored Las Vegas' fifth goal and assisted on Paul DiPietro's game-winner in the third period, flourishes in games like this. So does Zholtok, who had a couple of good opportunities to score No. 50, but will have to wait until Friday against Milwaukee to try for the mark.
But for a grinder like left wing Darcy Loewen, this is not the kind of game he enjoys. Even though he scored on a breakaway in the first period on a nifty pass from Bill Bowler, Loewen said this is not the way to prepare for the playoffs.
"It was pretty lackadaisical out there," he said. "Right now, it's a difficult time of the year. Guys are trying to gear up for the playoffs and you just want to get the regular season over with.
"But now that we've sewn up home ice, I think we can start concentrating on the playoffs and fine-tuning things so we're ready to go next week."
McSorley was looking for that kind of mentality throughout Tuesday, but only got it in the third period.
"I had some choice words for them," he said of his talk during the second intermission. "But in fairness to our guys, we only had one normal right wing (Patrice Lefebvre) dressed and all our lines were disjointed and our checking patterns were skewered.
"But when you play Chicago, you know that with two great scorers in Brown and Maltais, you're going to get into a turkey shoot. We were fortunate to shoot one more turkey than they did."
Thunderbolts ...
* MILLIONTH FAN: The Thunder honored its one millionth fan Tuesday and Las Vegas' Terry Manning was selected. Manning, a season ticket-holder, received several gifts from the team and also received round-trip air fare for two from Klassy 100. ... The game was delayed for several minutes late in the third period after the Wolves' Brian Wiseman got checked in the corner of the Chicago end and had to be taken from the ice on a stretcher with a broken leg. ... When these teams last met in March, they were whistled for 163 minutes in penalties. Tuesday, everyone behaved themselves and referee Lyle Seitz administered just 30 minutes of penance.
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