Royals Suffer First Loss of the Year, 5-1, to Manchester

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Teams     Per: 1          2          3

MAN:             1          1          3 =5

REA:              0          0          1 =1

Records

MAN: 1-1-0-1=3

REA: 2-1-0-0=4

Goaltenders

MAN:  Stevens (Win) (33/34) (1-0-0-1)

REA: Dekanich (Loss) (34/39) (1-1-0-0)

Power Play:

MAN: 2-4

REA: 0-5

Reading, PA – The Reading Royals (­­­­­­­­­loss, 2-1-0-0=4) of the ECHL, affiliate of the Philadelphia Flyers of the National Hockey League, were defeated by the Manchester Monarchs (win, 1-1-0-1=3), 5-1, at Santander Arena in Reading, Pennsylvania.

For the third straight game, the Royals were touched up for a pair power play goals against, including the first goal of the game, which came on Manchester’s first PP chance of the night. Reading gave the home-town crowd a ray of hope fifty-seconds into the third when a breakaway goal by Steven Swavely cut the Monarchs’ lead in half (2-1). But from there, things quickly crumbled as Manchester pulled away to hand Reading the team’s first loss of the year.

Manchester struck on their first power play opportunity of the game 13:26 into the first when Daniel Ciampini found Matt Leitner wide open and all alone eight feet off the top of the crease in the dead center of the ice. Leitner didn’t waste that look drilling a snap shot behind goaltender Mark Dekanich to the stick side. The puck hit the interior of the left pipe and ricocheted across the goal mouth—making it appear to some that it stayed out of the net. But the Royals didn’t protest, and it was ruled a good goal.

The Monarchs got what proved to be the game winner 14:36 into the second, when the Royals’ appeared to be showing signs of mid-game fatigue due to playing back-to-back games with significant bus travel. Defenseman Eddie Wittchow charged down the left wing side and forward Cory Ward beat everyone to a spot on the weak side, where Wittchow’s cross-crease pass gave Ward an easy back-door slam-dunk for his first of the year.

Reading cut the lead in half 50 seconds into the third when Mike Pereira landed a perfect lead-out pass from the neutral zone to a spot in the offensive end, where a flying Steven Swavely skated onto the loose puck, busted behind the Monarch defense and ripped a bullet across the body of goaltender Colin Stevens for his second of the season.

But the euphoria inside Santander Arena didn’t last long. In fact, just over a minute later, the Monarch’s Derek Arnold bagged what proved to be a back-breaker when Joey Diamond powered his way out of the left wing corner to the top of the crease, colliding with Dekanich and others, while the puck slipped back into the low slot where a wide open Arnold had an easy put-back for his first of the year.

Manchester then piled on with two more in relative quick succession. Joe Pendenza finished a back-hand spinorama after receiving a perfect pass from David Kolomatis at the right side of the Royals’ cage at 5:49 of the third, while Manchester was on their fourth power play of the night; and sixteen seconds after that, Alex Guptill buried a bullet on a two-on-one straight up the gut after a perfect feed from Ward.

That would be it for the scoring, as the Royals never really threatened from that point forward to get back in the game, despite generating several good scoring chances when the team opened things up in an effort to fuel a comeback.

Next up is an epic eight game western swing for the Royals starting in Boise, Idaho, where the Royals will meet the Idaho Steelheads for three straight starting next Wednesday (November 2) @ 9:10 pm Eastern. Every game on the road trip—and in fact every road game from this point forward for the Royals—will be televised locally in Berks County, Pennsylvania, on BCTV courtesy of Boscov’s Travel and Apple Vacations. The game night broadcast can also be heard live on iHeartRadio at “Rumba 1340” (Reading), starting with the pre-game warm-up show thirty minutes before the opening faceoff.

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