Goaltender Riley Gill turns around his tumultuous season, leading Royals to ECHL championship with MVP effort
By: Mike Ashmore
This wasn't supposed to happen for Riley Gill. At least not according to the other teams in the ECHL. Gill backstopped the Reading Royals to the ECHL’s Kelly Cup, defeating the Stockton Thunder in five games to win the title in the league’s 25th season.
But it very nearly never came to pass. In early October, Gill was dealt from Kalamazoo to Utah and then let go by the Grizzlies all in less than two weeks. He didn’t catch on with an ECHL team until February, toiling in the Southern Pro League until Reading, badly in need of good goaltending, came calling and picked him up mid-season.
“I got to prove all those people wrong that didn’t give me a chance,” said Gill, 28. “It was back-to-back months where it was a jolt to my hockey career…but I ended up coming to a great team in Reading, winning a championship and getting a playoff MVP trophy. You can’t get much better than that.”
Three days before Gill was signed, Royals coach and director of hockey operations Larry Courville was so desperate for crease help that he summoned 37-year-old ex-NHLer Frederic Cassivi out of retirement. Then in came Gill to the rescue, taking over No. 1 duties and posting a 13-4 record, 1.91 goals-against average and .930 save percentage in the playoffs.
In their 12th season under the Royals moniker, Reading had made the post-season seven times, but never advanced to the ECHL final. In fact, despite the league’s strong roots in the area, Reading is the first Pennsylvania team to win the title and only the second to advance to the Kelly Cup.
After Gill, Courville credits the acquisitions of Evan Barlow and Nikita Kashirsky, plus a strong affiliation with the NHL’s Washington Capitals and American League’s Hershey Bears, for giving his depleted post-lockout roster the boost it needed.
“I knew by the end of the year that we could have a chance at going all the way and hopefully have a chance at winning the whole thing,” Courville said. “But the biggest impact I was able to make was that when we lost guys, we were able to replace them with impact guys.”
Courville’s biggest coup, however, happened back in 2011. It was in November of that year he dealt for forward Yannick Tifu from the now-defunct Chicago Express. The fiery Quebec native with a gift for gab and clutch goals would not only become the team’s leading scorer, but also its captain and an inspiration to teammates.
That said, Tifu hadn’t won a title in seven ECHL seasons and he told reporters he felt the perception of him was that he was a great regular season player who couldn’t win when it mattered most. Four rounds and a Kelly Cup later, that thinking was proven a myth. “He wasn’t just our captain,” said Royals right winger Alex Berry.
“He was our best player and offensive spark. Every time he had the puck, he made things happen. Our team really fed off him. You can tell how badly he wanted to win the Cup and that’s why we wanted to play hard and win it for him.
THN Archive is an exclusive vault of 2,640 issues and more than 156,000 stories for subscribers, chronicling the complete history of The Hockey News from 1947 until today. Visit THN.com/archive and subscribe today at subscribe.thehockeynews.com