Leafs Affiliate Royals Review, March 4

The Royals Review

(Feb. 8-21)

READING, Pa. – Here are some notes of interest concerning players with Marlies connections (with this season’s ECHL statistics).

Ben Gordon – His goal against Trenton helped him become the 20th player in Reading history to score 20 goals in a season. He has 20 multi-point games this season.

His 21 goals equals his ECHL total from last year which was accomplished in 63 games. Still leads team in G, A, P and shots. His five-game point streak ended in the second game at Elmira. He’s seventh in the league in scoring. He’s still getting lots of ice time and working hard but the entire team has been going through lots of changes and struggling and he’s also been feeling those effects.

Robert Slaney – Was the second star for his three-assist game — a win over Trenton. Two of those assists came on the power play. Has been seeing a fair amount of ice time since returning from Toronto but hasn’t been doing too much with it.

Andrew Engelage – In his first ECHL game since Dec. 27, he allowed three goals in just over two periods — one even-strength, one power play and one short-handed.
Early in the third period of that game, with Reading on a power play, a turnover gave Trenton’s Jeremy Akeson a short-handed break. Engelage stopped Akeson’s first shot, but on the second shot Engelage appeared to sustain an injury as he fell face down and did not move. As Engelage was down and out, play continued until Akeson retrieved the puck, skated to the net and forced the puck through a defender for a goal. Despite the Royals’ protests that the play should have been stopped because of the injury, the goal was allowed. Prior to the injury he stopped 29 of 32 shots. Leads team in GAA. He’s on his second straight 3-day I.R. stint. He’s played so little this season, whether in Toronto or Reading, that it’s hard to imagine he’s made much progress.

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Barry Schickling can be contacted at Barry.DoubleSMedia@rocketmail.com