NORFOLK — It was a heartbreaking end for the Norfolk Admirals in the final game of their homestand Sunday evening at Norfolk Scope.
Anthony Beauregard blasted the puck past Thomas Milic’s reaching glove with 15.2 seconds remaining in overtime to lift the Trois-Rivières Lions to a 1-0 victory and a 3-2 lead in the ECHL Kelly Cup Eastern Conference North Division finals.
“It’s two top teams duking it out,” Admirals coach Jeff Carr said. “No one else is playing hockey in the ECHL right now. Everyone’s watching us, so you put that on center stage where you know that’s the show.”
Game 6 will be held at Colisée Vidéotron in Quebec at 7 p.m. Tuesday, and it’s a must-win situation for the Admirals to remain alive in the playoffs. The Florida Everblades, who are the three-time defending ECHL Kelly Cup champions, advanced out of the South Division finals and await the winner.
Beauregard’s goal snapped Milic’s streak of 259-plus goalless minutes at Scope. He finished with 33 saves.
“I tip my cap to (Trois-Rivières) getting one more goal than us tonight,” Carr said. “I’m sure they tipped their cap to us getting one more the other night.”
The Admirals outshot the visitors 12-9 in the extra period and flirted with ending it with a handful of opportunities. Midway through, Brady Fleurent skated to the left and slid a pass to Grant Hebert, who got a touch on the puck and then let it come between his legs up to his stick. He then deked to his left, but his shot was pushed away by Lions goalie Luke Cavallin.
With five minutes remaining, Chesapeake native Brandon Osmundson, the hero in Friday’s 1-0 victory, dashed around the left, circled behind the goal and tried to slip a shot past Cavallin, but he got his pads down to thwart the wraparound try. Ryan Chyzowski had another chance with less than two minutes remaining when he popped up unguarded, coming across Cavallin’s crease and following up an incoming shot from the point. Chyzowski swung at the rebounded puck, but Cavallin again came up with a crucial save.
“Incredible guts by both teams,” Carr said. “We had multiple chances where we thought we could score. And they had multiple chances. A classic for both teams.”
The puck drop resembled the opening bell to a prize fight, as the Admirals’ German Yavash and the Lions’ Morgan Adams-Moisan dropped gloves right after the start, much to the delight of the 5,038 fans. It was a continuation of the tension at the close of game 4, when players from both sides jawed at each other at center ice.
With each player clenching at the other’s sweater, Yavash circled to his right and connected on a punch that dropped Adams-Moisan to the ice, and officials then pounced before any more damage could be dealt.
Defense was at a premium in the first period as there were only eight combined shots on goal, with the Admirals snapping off five. Their best chance came midway through the period when Justin Young collected a pass flipped over the top and skated down the right clear through to goal. He rifled a shot that got past Cavallin, but the puck caromed off the crossbar.
The action picked up in the second period with both teams trading blows and threatening to break the deadlock.
Less than two minutes in, Osmundson was through on a breakaway, but he pushed his attempt into Cavallin’s blockers. Moments later, Trois-Rivières was awarded a power play, and Adams-Moisan drove between two defenders and fired a shot that got past Milic and bounced off the left post.
Midway through, the Admirals’ Denis Smirnov flashed down the right-hand side and backhanded a puck toward the net. In a scene reminiscent of Friday’s tilt, the red-light operator was fooled and signaled a goal, though it was waved off by officials on the ice. Following a delay for a review, the call on the ice was upheld, much to the disappointment of the raucous crowd.
Trois-Rivières’ Alex Beaucage rattled the side netting with a powerful drive from the top of the right circle with less than five minutes remaining.
The Admirals quickly responded by forcing a turnover deep in their offensive zone. The puck ended up at Grant Hebert’s stick, and he knocked a pass into the crease to an awaiting Colton Young, whose deflection sailed high into the glass.
Another turnover, this time by the Admirals in the neutral zone, gifted Trois-Rivières a late chance with Logan Nijhoff open on the left side. But his shot flew wide left of Milic’s cage.
Trois-Rivières started turning the screw in the third period, with Xavier Cormier getting a pair of chances four minutes in. His first attempt clanged off the post. Milic was able to slide over and parry away Cormier’s second moments later.
Milic remained steadfast in dealing with the increased pressure in front of the crease, and his teammates chipped in by scrambling to harry passes and diving to the ice to block shots.
With the Admirals short-handed at the 7:30 mark, Osmundson had the crowd rise to its feet with back-to-back shots, before crumpling to the ice after getting hit in the face with the puck while out in front of the net. Moments later and still down a man, Jack O’Leary connected with Hank Crone, whose blast was smothered by Cavallin.
Trois-Rivières finished with a 22-14 edge in shots over the final two periods of regulation.
“We’ve got a ton of weapons, and we’re going to have a really, really good Game 6 and see where that goes,” Carr said. “We’ll have to do it the hard way — go up to Canada and play two hockey games.
“We’ve had way, way bigger challenges than the one coming up.”
The Norfolk Tides ended their two-game losing streak Saturday night by beating the Nashville Sounds 4-1 before 8,993 at First Horizon Park in Tennessee.
The Tides (14-23) will seek a 3-3 split of the six-game International League series at 3:05 p.m. Sunday.
Left-hander Trevor Rogers provided an effective 4 1/3-inning start for Norfolk, giving up a run, three hits and a walk while striking out four. He was on a rehabilitation start from Baltimore, recovering from right knee problems, and was limited to 70 pitches.
Winner Corbin Martin (2-2), Roansy Contreras, Grant Wolfram and Kade Strowd combined for 4 2/3 shutout innings out of the bullpen, yielding just a combined three hits and one walk.
The Sounds (22-16) took a brief lead when Freddy Zamora grounded a double to left field in the second inning, bringing home Raynel Delgado.
The Tides answered for a 1-1 tie in the third as Coby Mayo, recently sent back to Norfolk by the parent Orioles, scored on Samuel Basallo’s single, his first of three hits for the game.
In the sixth, Basallo doubled to right off Carlos Rodriguez (2-1) and scored the go-ahead run when Vimael Machín lined a double to left field. TT Bowens then followed with a two-run homer to center field.
By JANIE HAR, Associated Press
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The Trump administration must halt much of its dramatic downsizing of the federal workforce, a California judge ordered Friday.
Judge Susan Illston in San Francisco issued the emergency order in a lawsuit filed by labor unions and cities last week, one of multiple legal challenges to Republican President Donald Trump’s efforts to shrink the size of a federal government he calls bloated and expensive.
“The Court holds the President likely must request Congressional cooperation to order the changes he seeks, and thus issues a temporary restraining order to pause large-scale reductions in force in the meantime,” Illston wrote in her order.
The temporary restraining order directs numerous federal agencies to halt acting on the president’s workforce executive order signed in February and a subsequent memo issued by the Department of Government Efficiency and the Office of Personnel Management.
The order, which expires in 14 days, does not require departments to rehire people. Plaintiffs asked that the effective date of any agency action be postponed and that departments stop implementing or enforcing the executive order, including taking any further action.
They limited their request to departments where dismantlement is already underway or poised to be underway, including at the the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which announced in March it will lay off 10,000 workers and centralize divisions.
Illston, who was nominated to the bench by former President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, said at a hearing Friday the president has authority to seek changes in the executive branch departments and agencies created by Congress.
“But he must do so in lawful ways,” she said. “He must do so with the cooperation of Congress, the Constitution is structured that way.”
Trump has repeatedly said voters gave him a mandate to remake the federal government, and he tapped billionaire Elon Musk to lead the charge through DOGE.
Tens of thousands of federal workers have been fired, left their jobs via deferred resignation programs or have been placed on leave as a result of Trump’s government-shrinking efforts. There is no official figure for the job cuts, but at least 75,000 federal employees took deferred resignation, and thousands of probationary workers have already been let go.
Lawyers for the government argued Friday that the executive order and memo calling for large-scale personnel reductions and reorganization plans provided only general principles that agencies should follow in exercising their own decision-making process.
“It expressly invites comments and proposals for legislative engagement as part of policies that those agencies wish to implement,” Eric Hamilton, a deputy assistant attorney general, said of the memo. “It is setting out guidance.”
But Danielle Leonard, an attorney for plaintiffs, said it was clear that the president, DOGE and OPM were making decisions outside of their authority and not inviting dialogue from agencies.
“They are not waiting for these planning documents” to go through long processes, she said. “They’re not asking for approval, and they’re not waiting for it.”
The temporary restraining order applies to departments including the departments of Agriculture, Energy, Labor, Interior, State, Treasury and Veteran Affairs.
It also applies to the National Science Foundation, Small Business Association, Social Security Administration and Environmental Protection Agency.
Some of the labor unions and nonprofit groups are also plaintiffs in another lawsuit before a San Francisco judge challenging the mass firings of probationary workers. In that case, Judge William Alsup ordered the government in March to reinstate those workers, but the U.S. Supreme Court later blocked his order.
Plaintiffs include the cities of San Francisco, Chicago and Baltimore; labor group American Federation of Government Employees; and nonprofit groups Alliance for Retired Americans, Center for Taxpayer Rights and Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks.
Originally Published: