Ice Flyers blank Snakes

Playing chase with the rest of the SPHL, the ninth-place Columbus Cottonmouths, just two points behind Macon for the eighth spot and five behind Louisiana for seventh, missed a golden opportunity on home ice Sunday falling 3-0 to the Pensacola Ice Flyers.

Shutout for a league-high fifth time this season, Columbus’ home record is a league-worst 7-13-3.

After his initial shot deflected off a defender, Pensacola’s Josh Cousineau broke a scoreless tie in the first period, slipping the rebound past Snakes goaltender Shannon Szabados for his eighth goal of the season.

Just recently returning from a tweaked knee, Szabados was in net for just the second time over the last month. Dropping her overall record to 5-11-4, she blocked 37 of 40 shots and has now lost her last five home decisions. Szabados took a slap shot to the neck late in the first period forcing her to drop to one knee, but she was able to finish out the rest of Sunday’s game.

Her counterpart, John McLean, stymied Columbus, shutting it out for the second time this season by going a perfect 26 for 26 in shots blocked.

“We had our chances in the first and second period,” Columbus coach Jerome Bechard said. “McLean made a couple of big saves early on, and he’s such a big guy that there were some shots that hit him and he didn’t even know it.”

Columbus went 0 for 5 on the power play and have scored a league-low 20 power play goals this season for just an 11.6 power-play percentage.

“Those are opportunities that we need to capitalize on,” Bechard said. “I think playing the last four games with a limited bench caught up to us tonight. Hopefully with a long week of rest, we can get some guys healthy as well as see some of our guys return back from the ECHL.”

One minute into the second period, the Ice Flyers stretched their lead to 2-0 with Joe Caveney scoring from his knees right in front of the net. Joseph Holka scored the third and final goal of the game 17:36 into the third period.

“Plenty of hockey, plenty of hockey remaining down the stretch,” Bechard said. “We’ve been playing pretty good hockey, just didn’t seem to have a lot of offensive jump tonight for whatever reason.”

Following a road trip to face off against the Havoc in Huntsville on Friday, the Snakes return to the Columbus Civic Center on Saturday to play the Knoxville Ice Bears.

Columbus is 5-2 versus the Ice Bears this season with each of the last two contests decided by one goal.

Sunday at Columbus Civic Center

Pensacola 1 1 1--3

Columbus 0 0 0--0

First period—1, Pensacola, Cousineau (Banfield, Zurn) 16:40; Penalties—Buco, Pensacola (Holding) 5:28; Gates, Pensacola, (Slashing) 9:13.

Second period—2, Pensacola, Caveney (Baker) 0:53; Penalties—Zurn, Pensacola (Hooking) 2:51; Gates, Pensacola (Hooking) 15:01; Rial, Columbus (Cross Checking) 15:55.

Third period—3, Pensacola, Holka (Buco, Adams); Penalties—Segal, Pensacola (Roughing) 6:06; Hafner, Columbus (Roughing) 12:49; Gavrik, Columbus (Holding) 18:59.

Shots on goal: Pensacola 12-15-13; Columbus 9-12-5

Power plays: Pensacola 0 of 3; Columbus 0 of 5.

Goaltenders: Pensacola, McLean (win) 60:00 9 12 5; Columbus, Szabados (loss) 60:00 11 14 12.

Referee: Lucas Martin. Linesman: Kuerston, Tallieu

Time: 2:29

Attendance: 1,722

This story was originally published March 13, 2016 at 11:34 PM with the headline "Ice Flyers blank Snakes."