Wranglers’ firepower doused by Aces in series-opening loss

The Wranglers entered the National Conference finals on Saturday armed with the top power play in the ECHL.

But it was the Alaska Aces, owners of the second-best penalty kill, who cashed in with the man advantage, scoring on a second-period power play en route to a 2-0 victory at Sullivan Arena in Anchorage.

Game 2 of the best-of-7 series is at 8:15 p.m. today in Anchorage.

Lance Galbraith scored with 5:14 left in the second and Alaska made the score stand, killing four Las Vegas power plays along the way.

Matt Stefanishion added an empty-net goal with 19 seconds remaining.

ECHL Most Valuable Player J.P. Lamoureux stopped all 18 Las Vegas shots for his league-best fourth playoff shutout.

Alexandre Imbeault set up Galbraith's score, centering a pass from the goal line to the front of the net, where Galbraith punched the puck past Las Vegas goalie Glenn Fisher (30 saves).

The Aces have scored first in all 11 of their playoff games and won nine of them.

Alaska outshot Las Vegas 32-18 overall and 11-4 in each of the first two periods.

"We came out a little sluggish in the first two periods," Wranglers rookie forward Scott McCulloch said. "It took us awhile to get our legs going and that's why you saw the shot differential."

Las Vegas scored an apparent goal seven minutes into the second period when Tyler Mosienko swatted the puck out of the air off a feed from Dan Spang, but officials ruled Mosienko's stick was above the crossbar and waved it off.

The Wranglers didn't get a shot on net in the second until less than nine minutes remained, when they came up empty on their third power play.

Las Vegas converted 16 of its first 63 power-play chances in the playoffs for a league-best 25.4 percentage.

Alaska has thrived on the penalty kill, allowing only six goals in 60 attempts.