Chicago Hounds Weekly Notes

Published on February 5, 2007 under International Hockey League 2 (IHL 2)
Chicago Hounds News Release


Hounds Suffer 3-1 Loss to Fort Wayne:

Hoffman Estates, IL. Chicago and Fort Wayne have battled six times this season with each team coming away with three victories. The seventh match of the season went to the team which rests on top of the Western Conference. With stellar goaltending from Kevin St. Pierre, the Komets were able to control much of the action and skated away with a 3-1 victory.

In the first period, Scott Seney fired the puck past Hounds goalie Marty Magers at 16:10 giving his team a one goal advantage. Just over two minutes later, the Komets would strike again. This time it was Fort Wayne forward David Hukalo that scored and put his team up by two goals at 18:13.

In the second period, the Hounds started to get the offensive chances but couldn't find an answer for the goaltending of St. Pierre who made some fantastic saves. The second went scoreless, but in the third period, a fortuitous bounce for the Hounds put them one goal closer. It happened when with Hounds forward Matt Johnson in the box, Chicago needed a big penalty kill. Todd Grant dumped the puck into the Komets zone and a race between captain Steve Cygan and veteran Komets defenseman Guy Dupuis ensued. Dupuis tried to pass the puck to his goaltender and ended up banking it off St. Pierre's skates and into his own net (5:25). The crowd came to their feet in delight as the Hounds had pulled to within one. But, the Komets wouldn't give up and they got an insurance marker from Matt Syroczynski after the puck was rifled off the high glass behind Magers and bounced right on the doorstep where it was batted home at 18:18. Magers would leave the contest due to an injury and wouldn't return. Brenden Cuthbert made four saves on four shots in his limited role.

Chicago was scoreless on the power-play going 0-4 while Fort Wayne was 1-6. St. Pierre stopped 25 of 26 while Magers stopped 32 of 35.

Generals Mount Charge, defeat Hounds 7-5:

Hoffman Estates, IL. Down by three goals and barely into the second period, the Chicago Hounds needed to muster some offense. Todd Grant started the resurgence when he tallied a power-play goal off a rebound from a point shot by defenseman Rod Aldoff (4:35) making the score 3-1. The Generals punched right back when they scored a power-play goal of their own when Jordan Fox put the puck past Hounds tender Brenden Cuthbert (6:45) and he recovered the Generals three goal lead. But, Chicago would score four unanswered goals in the comeback.

On the power-play again, Maris Ziedins ripped a shot from the right face-off circle and beat Generals goalie Bryan Worosz between the legs (9:37) which put the the Hounds within two goals again. Fifty-eight seconds later, Matt Johnson picked up a rebound and made a nice move to beat Worosz (10:35) low on the glove side and brought the Hounds within one shot of tying the game. The shot they needed would come off the stick of Todd Grant who made Flint pay on the power-play again. Rod Aldoff and Tom Zabkowicz manned the blueline and it was Zabkowicz who let it rip. Worosz made the initial save but he didn't have an answer for Grant who was camped out in front of the blue paint and scored his second goal of the contest (12:16) and tied the game at 4-4.

In the third period, Chicago had garnered all the momentum and got another goal, this time from Drew Otten who beat Worosz (2:18) and gave Chicago the first lead of the game. Later in the period, Matt Johnson took down Mike Kinnie on a breakaway and Kinnie was awarded a penalty-shot. But, it was Brenden Cuthbert that shut the door on Kinnie with a great save with the blocker. This didn't seem to phase the Generals who came right back with a power-play goal by Jeff Zehr that tied it at 5-5 (8:49). A few minutes later, Flint would take the lead and not look back. Jordan Fox scored his second of the contest when he snapped a wrist shot over the glove of Cuthbert (12:54) and the insurance goal was tallied by Jason Selleke (17:58). The Generals, who had blown a three goal lead and trailed by one goal, scored three unanswered again to retain the lead and skate away with a 7-5 victory.

Brenden Cuthbert made 30 saves on 37 shots and Worosz stopped 23 of 28. Both teams had success on their power-plays. Chicago went 3 for 6 while Flint struck twice on five shots.

Standings:

It was a tough weekend for Chicago in which they were unable to climb any further up the standings. In 44 games this season they have gathered 33 points and have a record of 16-27-1. The Quad City Mallards currently hold the third seed in the West-the same team Chicago beat twice in five days last week. They have accumulated 47 points in 45 games this season and a have 14 point lead on Chicago with more game played. The big race might boil down to Port Huron and Chicago. The Hounds are sitting at fourth place in the West and would normally be in a playoff spot but since the Flags have more points than Chicago and are fifth place in the East, technically, they would make the playoffs instead of Chicago. Basically, the Hounds can control their destiny if they start winning games and Chicago Captain Steve Cygan agrees, "Every time we leave two points on the table, it might come back to haunt us in April. We feel better as a team every week, but it will get to the point that we are in must-win games in order to stay alive in this race."

Western Conference

Team GP W L SOL PTS PCT GF GA PIM HOME AWAY

Fort Wayne 45 30 13 2 62 .689 160 106 1189 16-5-1 14-8-1

Rockford 45 26 15 4 56 .622 163 131 1189 14-7-2 12-8-2

Quad City 45 21 19 5 47 .522 154 162 1154 10-9-3 11-10-2

Chicago 44 16 27 1 33 .375 116 151 900 9-13-0 7-14-1

Bloomington 46 13 31 2 28 .304 111 174 942 8-14-0 5-17-2

The Goalie Story:

# GOALIES GP MIN W L SOL SO GA GAA SV SV%

31 Magers, Marty 38 2096:05 14 19 1 2 116 3.32 1129 .907

35 Cuthbert, Brenden 8 378:55 2 5 0 0 21 3.33 196 .903

(TOTALS) 19 837:28 5 7 2 1 46 3.30 387 .894

Both Marty Magers and Brenden Cuthbert got starts this weekend. Magers took the loss against Fort Wayne on Friday while Cuthbert was the losing goaltender versus the Generals the next night. A scary moment occurred during the third period on Friday when a Komets player fell on Magers. A few minutes later, Magers pulled himself and went directly to the training room. Despite overall body soreness, Magers was well enough to backup the following night. The Voice of the Hounds, Jason Shaya was asked to fill in on Saturday mornings skate. Shaya did an admirable job and received the praises of several Hounds players. Injured, but returning defenseman Chris Busby was stopped on 7 of 9 breakaway attempts after the morning skate-something Jason reminded Chris about several times during their broadcast on the B2 network Saturday night.

Scoring Leaders:

# PLAYERS POS GP G A PTS +/- PIM PPG PPA SHG SHA GWG SHOTS SPCT

-

15 Ziedins, Maris C 44 14 11 25 -6 39 5 2 2 1 4 106 .132

18 Cygan, Steve LW 40 10 15 25 -16 54 5 4 1 0 2 86 .116

2 Busby, Chris D 38 5 17 22 0 54 4 9 0 1 1 94 .053

16 Amado, Matt C 39 10 11 21 -14 35 3 3 1 0 2 113 .088

24 Grant, Todd F 44 11 9 20 -13 55 4 4 0 0 0 108 .102

Maris Ziedins and Steve Cygan both lead the team in scoring with 25 points. Both players scored goals this weekend to add a point to their overall totals. When defenseman Chris Busby returns, he looks to add to his totals and not far behind is rookie Matt Amado who had a great month of January where he totaled 11 points in 13 games.

Out of the Broadcast Booth, Back in the Lineup!

After suffering an upper body injury late last month, Chris Busby made himself available to the fans via the Chicago Hounds broadcasts with Hounds broadcaster Jason Shaya. Shaya was happy to have the help of one of the leagues premier defensemen, "He was fantastic and it was the most fun I have had in a long time. I would welcome him back anytime but I would rather see him on the ice because he is such an important part of this team.

Chris Busby will return to the lineup on Wednesday night when the Hounds battle the Kalamazoo Wings for the last time at the Sears Centre this year. Chris is very excited about the chance to comeback and help the team, "I loved watching the games from the broadcast booth, but I would rather be playing any day. You see the game from a different perspective and that was pretty cool. Now, it's time to get the skates back on and hopefully make a difference," Busby remarked. Chris suffered an upper-body injury in the first period of the game against Quad City on January 24th.

Coming up...The K-Wings and the Road:

On Wednesday afternoon, the Hounds will play host to the defending champs-the Kalamazoo Wings. The last time these two teams met was on January 12th and the Wings skated away with a 4-1 victory. The Zoo fired 42 shots on Magers that evening while only testing Tom Askey 22 times. Chicago knows a team like Kalamazoo must be challenged more, "They are the second best in the East and they have depth and goaltending. We haven't been successful against them this season and we have to be better prepared for them on Wednesday. We need to get more shots on goal with more traffic in front. There is nothing wrong with scoring the ugly goals." So far this season, the Hounds are 0-3 against the defending Colonial Cup champs.

The weekend will bring a road trip to the eastern most team in the league-the Elmira Jackals. The record against the Jackals is 2-2-1 this season with the last game coming two days before Christmas at the Sears Centre. In that game, the Jackals were victorious by a score of 6-2. Erik Anderson had both a short-handed and power-play goal while Brent Cullaton also netted two including the game winner.

Chicago Hounds on CLTV!

Tomorrow night on CLTV's Metromix, the Chicago Hounds will be featured in a segment that was filmed last week which included CLTV personality, Pogo. In the segment, you will see many funny moments from players, coaches and Pogo himself as he took to the ice for a Chicago Hounds practice. The show will air live at 7pm then repeat at 8, 9 and midnight that same afternoon. CLTV will also make the segment available on the Internet following its original air date on CLTV.com.

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International Hockey League 2 Stories from February 5, 2007


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