Saturday, November 27, 1999
BY JERRY LINDQUIST
Times-Dispatch Staff Writer
He’s back.
Maxime Gingras, the little goaltender who stood the East Coast Hockey League on its head last year, rejoined the Richmond Renegades last night and did what he does best: keep the puck out of the net.
Turning aside 24 shots, a half-dozen or more from right on, Gingras blanked the Trenton Titans 4-0.
Steve Dumonski scored a couple of goals, barely missing the hat trick on a two-on-none breakaway early in the third period. Dan Vandermeer scored his first goal as a professional, and brother Joe Vandermeer added another against goalie Bujar Amidovski, who arrived with the ECHL’s best goals-against average (1.89).
But, for a Coliseum crowd of 5,522, there was no question as to the identity of the first star. Sent down by Providence of the AHL, where he appeared in only six games as a backup, Gingras showed no signs of what coach Mark Kaufman called “Sent-down Syndrome.”
Players have been known to perform at less than their best after being moved to a lower classification. But Kaufman sensed that wouldn’t be a problem with Gingras, who was the ECHL’s rookie and goaltender of the year a season ago after leading the Renegades to the Kelly Cup finals. Game rust? Now that was something else.
“I was concerned about that to a certain degree. However, I felt that coming back and being exposed to the people who love him, his mind-set and emotional package would take over,” Kaufman said. “He’s a pretty gutty guy, and we saw his character take over the game.”
There was nothing wrong with his glove, stick, pads, even his face mask, too. The 5-6 155-pounder used all of the above to stone the Titans. This was the same Trenton team that left town with a 4-1 decision a week ago. And it was coming off its best outing of a season, an 8-1 waxing of visiting Charlotte on Wednesday.
The Renegades (13-3) couldn’t have scripted this one any better. On the Titans’ first rush, Gingras stopped two shots from right on by Matt Henderson. A 24-goal sniper for NCAA-champion University of North Dakota in 1998, Henderson kept shooting from in close, and Gingras kept making big saves.
Midway through the third period, after Gingras made a glove save of his five-foot wrist shot, Henderson looked at the goalie, shook his head and skated away. He wasn’t the only one.
While the Renegades were converting three of four power plays, Trenton (7-7-2), an expansion team with ties to the New York Islanders and AHL’s Philadelphia Phantoms, was going 0 for 4. The Titans forechecked Richmond into submission last time. This time, they kept the puck in the offensive end more than Kaufman would have preferred. (“We gave them a lot of opportunities with unforced errors.”) Gingras was the difference.
If he was unhappy about the demotion, Gingras said he made certain it wasn’t going to affect his play. For one thing, he saw how John Grahame reacted to the news he was being sent down by the parent Boston Bruins. “He wasn’t happy with the situation, and he didn’t have a good game. I didn’t want that to happen to me,” Gingras said.
At least he knew he’d be welcomed here. “I felt everybody was behind me,” he said. “I was really pumped up.”
How long he will remain with the Renegades is anybody’s guess. It could be two days or two months. Whatever Providence wants. “That’s where he should be. He’s done about everything he can do at this level,” Kaufman said. “You saw what he can do. He made a lot of tough chances look easy.”
© 1999, Richmond Newspapers Inc.