Short-handed Condors top Aces

The short-handed Bakersfield Condors beat the listless Alaska Aces 3-1 on Sunday night to keep the Aces from sweeping the three-game ECHL series.

Struggling Aces rookie goaltender Adam Courchaine stopped 15 shots, but made a ghastly and costly turnover, and Bakersfield's Brian Stewart made 38 saves.

Brad Snetsinger's empty-net goal with 35.9 seconds left sealed victory for the Condors (22-20-2).

With only about 10 minutes left, Aces center Brian Swanson finally cracked Stewart, and even that took a remarkable display of hand-eye coordination. Swanson redirected Chad Anderson's waist-high shot from the right point over Stewart's blocker and into the top shelf to cut Bakersfield's lead to 2-1.

In two wins against the Aces (24-16-2), Stewart has stopped 84 of 86 shots for a .977 save percentage, which is really good.

The Aces' first period proved an indifferent effort, at best - turnovers, shoddy passing, sloppy breakouts and a dearth of quality scoring chances. The second period was much of the same.

The Condors, with three local players added to their lineup to supplement 11 regular skaters, grabbed a 1-0 lead when former UAF center Adam Naglich set up Guillaume Lefebvre for a goal just shy of nine minutes into the game.

Exactly two minutes later, Courchaine went behind his net to play the puck and inadvertently delivered a tape-to-tape pass to Bakersfield's Stephane Goulet. Goulet, stationed at the bottom of the right circle, immediately fired into an open net for a 2-0 lead.

When a goaltender plays the puck well, he frustrates opposing forecheckers and relieves pressure on his own defensemen by serving as a third defenseman of sorts. When a goalie plays the puck poorly, he only compounds his team's problems. Courchaine played the puck smartly and well earlier in the season but lately he's treated the puck like a grenade and also been prone to surrendering soft goals.

Courchaine's first-period difficulties were line with his previous four games, which were miserable, especially in comparison to his first seven starts for the Aces.

In his first seven Alaska games, the rookie went 5-2-0 with a 1.58 goals-against average and .938 save percentage. In his previous four games prior to Sunday, those numbers plunged to 0-3-1, 4.68 and .825.

The Aces on Wednesday night open a three-game series at Victoria.

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