Woman Wants Mail Delivery Issue Addressed

Alfred Fredrickson

By STEVE SEMBRAT steves@leader.net
 Sunday, February 25, 2001 &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Page: 1C 





WILKES-BARRE TWP. - So where were you on Saturday when Wilkes-Barre/Scranton
scored four consecutive goals in the third period to rally for a 7-7 tie with
St. John's? &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Had you headed home to beat the traffic? Or turned off the radio to catch
the early news? &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Serves you right. Those of the 8,439 fans at the First Union Arena who
stayed to the end experienced one of the most stirring comebacks in the team's
two-year history. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 ``You never give up, no matter how bad things look,'' Wilkes-Barre/Scranton
head coach Glenn Patrick said. ``When you starting doing that, it becomes easy
to lose.'' &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Perhaps you were that guy heckling Trent Cull in the second period when the
Penguins were down 7-3. If so, he'd like to apologize and thank you. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 He's sorry for responding to your barb with an obscenity. He's glad you lit
a fire under him because, in the locker room between the second and third
period, it spread like wildfire. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 ``We said to each other we can come back,'' said Cull, who scored two goals
and was the game's No. 1 star. ``We scored five goals in the third period
against that team before. We went out and started working hard and smart, and
things started happened.'' &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 The fourth line came out flying early in the third after
Wilkes-Barre/Scranton had been dreadful in the first two periods. Alexandre
Mathieu, Dylan Gyori and Alexander Zevakhin threw their bodies around with
reckless abandon, and that led to Mathieu's goal at 3:58, cutting the Maple
Leafs' lead to 7-4. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 ``The fourth line got us going,'' said Tom Kostopoulos, who scored twice
for the Penguins. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 The fans seemed to sense something special when Cull scored his second goal
of the contest with nine minutes remaining. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 The building sounded like a jet engine when Milan Kraft scored with 7:26
left. The fans thought that Cull (No. 44, Kraft is No. 14) had completed the
hat trick, and showered the ice with hats. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 ``I want to thank the fans for doing that,'' said Cull, who has five goals
this season. ``That's the closest Trent Cull is ever going to come to getting
a hat trick.'' &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Kostopoulos tied the score at 7 with 4:37 left, then had the best two
chances of overtime. St. John's goalie Mike Minard stopped Kostopoulos on a
breakaway with 2:34 left, and seconds later Kostopoulos couldn't get a puck
over Minard, who had fallen. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 ``It was really big to get one point out of this,'' Kostopoulos said. ``I
had a chance to win the game. If I buried it, we would have had two points.'' &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Even so, Wilkes-Barre/Scranton (28-20-8-1, 65 points) moved within six
points of Rochester in the AHL's Mid-Atlantic Division. Rochester lost, 4-2,
at Springfield on Saturday. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 ``This shows what kind of heart we have,'' Wilkes-Barre/Scranton goalie
Joel Laing said. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 It was Laing, not Cull, who was at ground zero of the jeers as the Penguins
played an awful first two periods. St. John's scored on its first two shots,
with Alyn McCauley and Adam Mair getting deflection goals in the first 55
seconds of the first period. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Kostopoulos got the Penguins within 2-1, then Jeff Farkas answered for the
Maple Leafs. Darcy Verot pulled the Penguins within 3-2, then McCauley scored
again for the Maple Leafs. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 ``We didn't play well the first two periods,'' Patrick said. ``All of the
things we normally do, we weren't doing.'' &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Farkas gave St. John's a 5-2 lead early in the second period. Cull pulled
the Penguins within 5-3, but the Maple Leafs stretched their lead to four on
goals by McCauley and Syl Apps. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 The lead sent fans trickling out of the First Union Arena. Some might be
very surprised to find that the Penguins were down, but not out. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 ``This is the best one point we're going to get all season,'' Cull said. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

4-goal Comeback Gives Penguins A Tie To Savor Wilkes-barre/scranton Stuns The Maple Leafs By Rallying From A 7-3 Deficit With A Big Third Period.