Winnipeg Sun
Sunday, October 28, 2001
By Ken Wiebe -- Winnipeg Sun

On this night, Alfie Michaud would not be denied.

Making his third consecutive start, the Selkirk product turned aside 24 shots as the Manitoba Moose snapped a three-game winless skid with a 3-0 triumph over the Saint John Flames before 5,751 at the Winnipeg Arena last night.

Michaud was not forced to be brilliant but was steady in recording his second professional shutout.

"For me, the biggest thing is to be patient and relax out there," said Michaud, whose only other shutout came against the Moose last season. "The first couple of starts here at home I've been uptight for some reason."

There were no signs of nerves at all last night as Michaud earned his first victory of the season.

"I just wanted to win, that's it," said Michaud, who was 2:30 away from a shutout one night earlier, only to see the contest end with a disappointing overtime defeat. "I've been snake-bitten, I wanted to get that monkey off my back."

"What I liked about him is that he was very under control," said Moose head coach Stan Smyl. "He was settled and he was focused on what he wanted to do."

The game marked the end of a three-game homestand and helped the Moose improve their record to 3-4-0-2.

After a lacklustre effort against the Milwaukee Admirals on Wednesday night, the Moose bounced back to take three of four points from the defending Calder Cup champions.

The lone goal of the opening period came on the power play as Moose right-winger Brad Leeb took a beautiful cross-ice feed from Bryan Allen and beat Flames goalie Levente Szuper with a quick wrist-shot at 9:06.

Manitoba pulled away with a pair of goals in the second that Szuper would love to have back.

With his team short-handed centre Pat Kavanagh won the draw back to Bryan Helmer, whose seeing-eye wrister made it through a maze of traffic at 1:28.

Allen added his first goal as a member of the Moose on the power play at 4:17 to pad the lead.

"We didn't want to let it happen again," said Allen, who also laid out Winnipegger Jason Botterill in the third period with a thundering open-ice hit. "You've got to learn from your mistakes and that's what we did tonight."



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