By Aaron McCracken
May 19, 2001

The expectations were high and the crowd was roaring, but the Saint John Flames failed to deliver a win in Game One of the Calder Cup final, falling 4-3 to the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins.

With Flames' fans on their feet, the Penguins quieted the crowd early when Darcy Verot whacked home a rebound just 19 seconds into the first period after an ugly mistake by the Flames' defense. The Flames had a couple of chances to tie the game, but found themselves down 2-0 when Alexendre Mathieu ripped a shot past Martin Brochu on a two-on-one breakaway.

The Flames didn't look great in the 2^nd period, but managed to pull within one when Derrick Walser shot a bullet from the point with 4 minutes remaining. But the Pens stormed right back and scored less than a minute later when Martin Sonnenberg crashed the net with the teams skating four-on-four.

The Flames didn't look any better early in the third, and the Pens made it 4-1 when Jason Botterill stood and watched Jason MacDonald wander in from behind the net and slip it by Brochu. While this seemingly put the game away for Wilkes-Barre, it was actually far from over. Micki Dupont scored from the point three minutes later to make it 4-2, and Rico Fata scored with 73 seconds left to put the Flames back within one. Unfortunately, Saint John couldn't create a good scoring chance in the final seconds of the game, and ended up on the short end of a 4-3 game. While the Flames played very strong in the 3^rd period, their horrible decision making and shaky goaltending in the first two periods was just too costly.

Rich Parent made 38 saves for Wilkes-Barre, and look very solid. At the other end of the ice, Brochu seemed to fight the puck for most of the night and had a lot of trouble controlling rebounds. He finished with 21 saves on the night.

Game two is Saturday night, 7:00 ADT.

• Coach Jim Playfair's comments on the Flames' effort "I believe that coaching has a big reflection on the start of the game. We have to re-evaluate what happened there. If we played three periods like we played the third period I think that we could have made a better game of it."

• Harbour Station was sold out for the first time in three years.

• There were over 100 screaming fans from Wilkes-Barre at the Station. It's over a 16 hour drive from Northern Pennsylvania to Southern Saint John, so they deserve quite a bit of credit!

• Neither team scored on the Power Play. The Flames were 0-for-4, the Pens were 0-for-3.

• The line of Murray, Botterill, and Varlamov were on the ice for three of the Pens' goals. Botterill had a horrible game, and appeared lost at times.

1. Walser (Tkaczuk)

2. Dupont (Tkaczuk)

3. Fata (Varlamov, Betts)

3. Daniel Tkaczuk.

2. Alexandre Mathieu

  1.    Rich Parent

Murray – Varlamov – Botterill

Tkaczuk – Begin -- Clark

Betts – Roche – Fata

Doull – Royer

Walser – Martin

Montador – Scoville

Mrozik – Dupont

Scratches: Chris St. Croix (healthy), Bobby Russell (healthy), Jeff Mitchell (healthy), Jamie Ling (healthy), Miika Elomo (out), Kenny Corupe (out), Jason Morgan (out), Dany Sabourin (healthy).