Admirals’ magical season included record-setting streak and a Calder Cup
TORONTO — At the end, there was a broom in one of the three boxes owned for a day by the Angelidis clan. It supported the chant that started from a small group halfway up the stands behind Norfolk Admirals goalie Dustin Tokarski, who was finishing the kind of playoff run that earns a reputation.
“Sweep. Sweep. Sweep.” Two goals each by Mike Kostka and Tyler Johnson and one each by PierreCedric Labrie and Richard Panik made prophesy of that chant Saturday. They gave the Admirals a 6-1 win over Toronto that completed a 4-0 sweep of the Marlies and earned each player time with the Calder
Cup in front of friends and family members who filtered out onto the Ricoh Coliseum ice.
Norfolk’s first Calder Cup will arrive in the city on Monday with the team.
“I can’t even explain it,” said captain Mike Angelidis. “It’s unbelievable, a dream come true. I don’t think myself, or any other member of this team or
organization, will ever forget this year.
“To finish this off in my hometown, with all my family supporting me here, I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. I love every one of those guys on my team right now.”
The lovefest went on into the night after the season’s clock struck 12 and Tokarski ripped off his helmet and put it atop the goal, then was rushed by players who dropped sticks and gloves along the way and piled into each other.
“I’ve been blessed and fortunate to be on some special teams,” said Tokarski, who turned back 18 of 19 shots and was dented only by Mike Zigomanis’ goal that tied the game 1-1 in the first period.
It was scored on a 5-on-3 power play.
Tokarski has won at every level, dating to when he was a teenager.
“I’ve been with teams with so much passion and commitment,” he said. “There’s so much of this on this team.”
He finished the playoffs with eight consecutive wins, spanning sweeps of St. John’s and Toronto. Along the way, he gave up only six goals, showing a 0.73 goals-against average and a 0.972 save percentage, with three shutouts.
Tokarski got early help on a goal by Panik, accomplished when he took a pass from Johnson, skated in from the right wing and fired a shot off Toronto’s
Juraj Mikus that beat goalie Ben Scrivens into the net.
Zigomanis’ goal tied it, and the Marlies went into the second period with 2:25 of power-play time remaining, the remnant of a fiveminute major penalty assessed Panik for elbowing Simon Gysbers. Panik also was ejected from the game because of the play, but he was around and in uniform to take a turn with the Calder Cup, as were other Admirals who didn’t play at all.
Kostka also was assessed a high-sticking penalty at 18:40 of the first, adding insult to penalty-killing injury.
Two minutes after the penalty was killed in the second period, Kostka scored from long range to break the tie.
“I’ll tell you, (Kostka) was on my (bad) list for taking that penalty,” said coach Jon Cooper, his tan suit soaked with orange Gatorade, courtesy of a tub dumped on him by Angelidis and Jean-Philippe Cote. Cooper also reeked of champagne, courtesy of several players.
“I told the guys at the break that if we get through this penalty kill, we’ll win the hockey game,” Cooper said.
They did just that, getting pucks cleared by several players, among them defenseman Scott Jackson. He was playing his first minutes of the Toronto series after having suffered a concussion in Game 4 against St. John’s when he blocked a shot with his head.
He wanted ice time in the Finals badly and learned an hour before the game that he would get it.
“All that weight lifted off my shoulders,” Jackson said. “I’ve been sick to my stomach, wanting to play, hoping I could play, and when I learned I would be playing, it all went away.”
Kostka’s first goal came after he took a pass from Ondrej Palat that was threaded through the Toronto defense. Johnson’s goal later in the period made it 3-1.
When Kostka scored again, only 44 seconds into the final period, the rout was on, the “Sweep, Sweep, Sweep” chant became louder, and Alex Angelidis waved the broom while watching his son on the ice below.
Kostka’s goals were especially important to him after his dumped pass Thursday became the game-winning goal when it caromed into the net at a crazy angle.
Later, officials agreed that the goal should have been disallowed, but the score of the game, 1-0, stood.
“The controversy of the goal Thursday, with people saying it shouldn’t be a goal, I think I made it pretty clear that those two counted tonight,” Kostka said.
A lot of things counted by the time the teams went into handshake mode after the Admirals unpiled from Tokarski.
“It’s been a magic season,” said Angelidis, who will attend the bridal shower of fiancée Lenna Nitsopoulos today in nearby Unionville. “I don’t know what kind of frame of mind I’ll be in, but I’ll be there.”