By Robin Short
Telegram Sports Editor
The slumping St. John’s IceCaps dropped their sixth straight game on home ice Saturday night in a 3-2 overtime loss to the Manchester Monarchs.
The Monarchs skated away from Mile One Centre with four points, after winning 3-2 Friday night, as well.
The IceCaps did manage to pick up a point Saturday by sending the game into overtime, but that’s little consolation to a team that’s dropped 12 of 18 games on home ice.
The IceCaps are now 15-19-1-1 and 10th in the American Hockey League’s 15-team Eastern Conference.
“Patience are wearing thin,” said coach Keith McCambridge. “I’m tired of watching and not getting results. We need to step on the gas here and squeeze as much as we can out of every single game, every single player.
“I’m not happy with not getting results here. It’s not good enough. I’m not going to be satisfied with being a mediocre team all season.”
Defenceman Slava Voynov’s goal at 3:01 of overtime sealed the victory for the Monarchs. Dave Meckler streaked down the ice and dropped the puck to a trailing Voynov, who beat Mark Dekanich for his seventh goal on the year.
Jordan Weal and Tanner Pearson also scored for the winners. Good news for IceCaps fans as Carl Klingberg snapped a 15-game goalscoring drought with a pair of tallies.
Just as they did Friday night, the IceCaps gave up an early goal Saturday when Weal scored on Manchester’s second shot on goal 3:42 in.
It remained 1-0 until Klingberg notched his sixth goal on the year at 11:37 of the second.
Pearson put Manchester ahead again at the 2:29 mark of the third period, but Klingberg batted a bouncing puck past former St. John’s goaltender Peter Mannino just under seven minutes later which forced overtime.
“Ultimately,” said IceCaps captain Jason Jaffray, “you can’t just come out every game and say, ‘Well, we tried our best and came up goal short.’ That seems like how it’s been the last 20 games, and it cannot continue.
“It’s to a point where talk is only talk. You have to bring it out on the ice.”
The IceCaps are off until next weekend when the Toronto Marlies, the first-place team in the Western Conference, visit Mile One Centre for games Friday and Saturday.
St. John’s might get some help in the former of Alexander Burmistrov, who was seen in the IceCaps’ locker room following Saturday’s game.
The locked-out Winnipeg Jet hasn’t played in 14 games since injuring his shoulder and has been in Winnipeg since then. He arrived in St. John’s Saturday.
Burmistrov has three goals and 13 points in 22 games.
rshort@thetelegram.com
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