Walleye Royally removed

The Reading Royals showed Toledo Walleye the exit door last night (April 26) wrapping up a strange but thrilling Eastern Conference quarter-final round at the Huntington Center with a 4-1 win in the series finale.

The Walleye finished the 72-game regular season atop the Eastern Conference standings with a record of 47-20-2-3 while the Reading Royals — 36-26-6-4 slid into the eighth and final playoff position. But, despite a 17-point difference between the two teams it was Reading that owned control of this one seemingly from the drop of the puck.

The Walleye never held a games edge in the series, battling back to even it three times, including a 3-1 edge at Santander Arena Sunday (April 24) to stave off elimination and force the seventh contest.

A quick look at the game sheet shows a dominant effort by the Walleye with nearly a 2-1 edge in shots (38-20) but the most important stat shows a 4-1 cushion for the Royals who turned a narrow 1-0 lead after a period into a somewhat comfortable 3-0 margin in the first seven minutes of the middle frame.

Ryan Koumas, 24 scored his first of the playoffs in the opening period with second period markers by veteran Nikita Kashirsky and a second by Koumas widened the margin

That left the Walleye 20 minutes to right the ship and 22-year-old Matt Caito who a month earlier wrapped up his fourth and final season at Miami of Ohio, pulled the trigger for the home team just 87 seconds in leaving plenty of time for a comeback rally.

But that was the lone shot, of 38 fired, to elude Royals’ goaltender Martin Ouellette, 24 who played in six games and picked up all four Reading wins.

Koumas, who game into the game without a playoff goal, notched his third of the contest with 8:57 to play and that wrapped up the seventh game win.

The Royals shockingly won three of four games played at Toledo in this series while dropping two of three on home ice.

The series is the fourth straight for the Walleye to reach the seven game limit as last season the team reached the Conference finals with a pair of seven game victories before falling in the fourth overtime of Game seven against the South Carolina Stingrays in the Conference Championship series.

The loss by the Walleye, combined with the earlier submission by the Kalamazoo Wings leaves no more Midwest-based teams in the Eastern Conference post season which will see Reading, Wheeling, South Carolina and Adirondack battling it out in the Conference semis.