Thunder loses despite stellar effort by goaltender Langkow

Not even good goaltending wins games for this team.

The Las Vegas Thunder needs so much more.

It demonstrated as much when goalie Scott Langkow turned in one of his best performances of the season, but still got beat 2-1 by the Manitoba Moose Tuesday night at the Thomas & Mack Center.

"The makeup of this team doesn't lend itself to scoring goals," Thunder head coach Bob Bourne said. "We have some guys who can score, but we're not going to win a game 6-2."

The loss dropped Las Vegas to 9-23-4 on the season, which ranks dead last among all 16 International Hockey League teams. Manitoba is 21-11-6.

Las Vegas outshot Manitoba 33-27. But the Thunder was shut out by Moose goalie Richard Shulmistra in the second and third periods on 13 and 11 shots, respectively.

Langkow, who entered the game with a 4.21 goals-against average, stopped 25 shots. His season record dropped to 7-14-1.

The loss, however, marked Langkow's best effort since he stopped 37 shots to blank Milwaukee nearly three months ago. Since then he had allowed fewer than three goals in a full game only once, when he was beaten 2-1 Dec. 9 at Detroit.

"Langkow has played great the last two or three weeks," Bourne said. "He's really come around."

One of Langkow's biggest saves came at 12:52 of the third period, when he stopped former Thunder center Bill Bowler one-on-one. As Bowler weaved in close to the crease, Langkow committed by splitting his legs. Bowler appeared primed for the goal, but Langkow stopped the point-blank shot by trapping it with his leg pad.

It appeared Langkow could not be beaten.

But an incredible shot from Jason MacDonald finally got past Langkow at 18:01 of the third. MacDonald fired the puck from inside the right-wing circle. It zipped past Langkow's kicking right skate and clanked inside the right post.

"It was an unbelievable shot," Bourne said. "He shot it 100 miles per hour and it hit the post. There's nothing you can do about it.

"We're snakebit. I know that's so hard for some people to believe, but you go back (nine) games to when Houston beat us 7-2 (on Dec. 16), and we're in every game.

"I see goals scored against our team and I just have to shake my head. And then the puck just is not going in for us."

The Thunder opened the scoring Tuesday night 70 seconds after the opening faceoff, when defenseman Jason McBain recorded his fourth goal of the season. Shawn Wansborough and Sean Berens assisted.

The Moose struck back at 10:46 of the first period. After Las Vegas captain Brad Miller was whistled for a cross check, Manitoba's Scott Arniel converted the power play for his 12th goal of the season off assists from former Thunder players Kent Fearns and Brett Hauer.

Neither team scored in the second period.

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