Presented by ZAMZOWS.
This Day In Sports…May 15, 2007:
The Idaho Steelheads complete a dominating dismissal of the regular season’s two best teams in the ECHL by beating the Alaska Aces 3-2 to win the National Conference Finals four games-to-one on the way to a second Kelly Cup championship in four years. The Aces had posted the second-best record in the ECHL that season—the Steelies had already polished off the league leaders, the Las Vegas Wranglers, in the second round of the playoffs.
The game-winner against Alaska came on a shorthanded goal by the guy who had played more games than any other player in Steelheads history, Scott Burt, five minutes into the third period. The rival Aces were not going to go quietly, though. With five minutes left in regulation, the Steelies’ Travis Wight was whistled for covering the puck in the crease, and Alaska was promptly awarded a penalty shot. Julian Talbot took the ice for Alaska and wheeled in toward the net, and Idaho goaltender Steve Silverthorn made one of the biggest saves of his life.
The series wins over Las Vegas and Alaska were huge accomplishments—Steelheads coach Derek Laxdal felt that the strength of the ECHL that season was in the West. After all, the Wranglers were riding an ECHL record 18-game winning streak in the National Conference semifinals before Idaho cast them aside. Laxdal’s team proved out his theory by defeating the Dayton Bombers four games-to-one in the Kelly Cup Finals a little more than two weeks later. Silverthorn would be named Finals MVP after recording 16 postseason wins, the most in ECHL history.
The Steelheads were a fun watch that season, as they had incredible chemistry fostered by longtime standouts like Burt, Marty Flichel, Darrell Hay and the late Lance Galbraith. Burt, Hay and Galbraith had been part of the Steelies’ first Kelly Cup title in 2004. It was Laxdal who steered the ship. He coached the Steelies for five seasons and guided them to a second Kelly Cup Finals appearance in 2010, when they fell to the Cincinnati Cyclones. Laxdal, who just turned 60 in February, is currently wrapping up his second season as head coach of the Coachella Valley Thunderbirds of the AHL.
(Tom Scott hosts the Scott Slant segment during the football season on KTVB’s Sunday Sports Extra. He also anchors four sports segments each weekday on 95.3 FM KTIK and one on News/Talk KBOI. His Scott Slant column runs every Wednesday.)
