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ECHL Cincinnati Cyclones

Cyclones Weekly

April 16, 2007 - ECHL (ECHL)
Cincinnati Cyclones News Release


COMING UP: The Cincinnati Cyclones (37-29-4-2) finish their North Division semifinal series with Toledo this week. Cincinnati, which leads the best-of-five series, two games to none, plays at U.S. Bank Arena on Thursday (April 19) at 7:30pm. A Cyclones win would finish the series. A Toledo victory would force a fourth game the next night (Friday, April 20) at 7:30pm--again, in Cincinnati. Should the Storm win twice in the Queen City--a fifth game would be played in Toledo on Sunday, April 22 at 5pm.

OTHER PAIRINGS: The North Division semifinals feature the Cyclones, with a 2-0 lead over Toledo, in one series and Dayton, with a 1-0 lead over Trenton. The winners of these series meet in the North Division finals, a best-of-seven series, which begins next week. The other half of the American Conference, the South Division, has Florida holding a 2-0 lead over Charlotte and Gwinnett and Texas are tied at a win apiece. The winners of the two divisions will meet the winner of the National Conference in the Kelly Cup finals.

THE CYCLONES AND TOLEDO: This series will mark the second time in club history that the Cyclones and Toledo have met in the postseason. During the 2002-03 Kelly Cup playoffs, the teams met in a best-of-five series--with the Cyclones claiming a triumph in four games. Cincinnati would be eliminated in the American Conference finals that year. During 2006-07, Cincinnati won six of the ten meetings between the teams to claim the season series. Thursday's game will be the 48th meeting between the teams all-time, with the Cyclones having a 26-18-3 mark. Toledo is the defending North Division regular season and playoff champion.

ABOUT GAME ONE...: Friday night (April 13), the Cyclones claimed a 3-1 triumph at the Toledo Sports Arena. Cincinnati opened the scoring in the first period with a Jon Gleed goal. Toledo answered in the second period with an Andrew Martin tally. The Cyclones closed out the scoring in the third period with goals from Scott Reynolds and Greg Stewart, 1:16 apart. Cedrick Desjardins stopped 32 shots in collecting the win.

ABOUT GAME TWO...: Saturday night (April 14), Toledo jumped out to a 2-0 edge in the first 7:11, thanks to goals from Scooter Smith and Dan Watson. The Storm had three power play chances during that stretch as well. The Cyclones rebounded with four goals in a six minutes stretch to open a 4-2 lead. Scott Reynolds, Matt Macdonald, Jason Deitsch and Sam Ftorek all collected scores. Greg Stewart got the lone tally of the middle frame and despite Nick Parillo scoring six seconds into the third period to cut the lead to 5-3, Cincinnati closed out the scoring with goals from Mike Wirll and Chad Starling. The final was a 7-3 triumph for Cincinnati and a two-zero edge in the series. Cedrick Desjardins stopped 37 shots in taking his second postseason win.

I'VE GOT YOUR HOME ICE ADVANTAGE: During the regular season, the home team won nine of ten games between the Cyclones and Storm. Cincinnati responded by taking two victories out of Toledo and all three in the series this season. The Cyclones, who host Thursday's game (and Friday's if necessary), were 19-13-4 at U.S. Bank Arena this season--the second-most wins on home ice in the division behind.....Toledo and its 27 triumphs at the Toledo Sports Arena.

ROAD WARRIORS: The Cyclones have enjoyed playing away from U.S. Bank Arena in recent times, unbeaten in its last five (4-0-1), has won nine of the last 13 (9-3-1--since March 1) and twelve of the last nineteen (12-6-1--since February 1). Cincinnati is the only team in the American Conference with two road wins in the playoffs, only Las Vegas and Alaska (the teams with the ECHL's best regular season records) have matched that feat in the National Conference.

HOORAY FOR THE ROOKIES: The Cyclones received half of their goals this weekend in Toledo via their rookies. Jon Gleed, Scott Reynolds and Greg Stewart netted the goals in Friday's 3-1 win over Toledo. On Saturday, Reynolds goal pulled Cincinnati to within one goal (2-1) and Stewart's goal opened a 5-2 edge. Cedrick Desjardins stopped 69 shots in the wins.

EXTRA SPECIAL TEAMS: The Cyclones scored four of their ten goals against Toledo on special teams. The power play unit ranks fourth in the postseason at 30 percent (three-for-ten) and the penalty killers have continued their torrid pace, eliminating 87.5 percent of the power plays faced (14-of-16) and have one shorthanded goal.

DESJARDINS NAMED ALL-ROOKIE: Cyclones goaltender Cedrick Desjardins was named to the ECHL's All-Rookie Team at the end of the regular season. Desjardins, 21, put together a 24-19-1 record with a 2.54 goals against average (fifth in the ECHL) and a .917 save percentage. Cedrick also collected five shutouts during the season.

WEBER TOP ROOKIE: Cyclones Head Coach Chuck Weber assembled the best winning percentage of any rookie coach in the ECHL. Weber directed Cincinnati to a 37-29-4-2 record (.556 winning percentage). That was .021 percent and one win more than Rick Kowalsky, the Trenton coach. Weber was the runner-up for the ECHL's Coach of the Year award that was won by Davis Payne of Alaska.

CH-CH-CH-CHANGES...: The Cincinnati Cyclones have had ten players recalled to the American Hockey League (AHL) during the course of this season. Cincinnati has lost a total of 221 man-games due to recall, the equivalent of losing nearly three players for the entire season. At this moment, two players are in the AHL, Cory Urquhart is with Hamilton and Dov Grumet-Morris is with Manitoba.

MORE CH-CH-CH-CHANGES...: Due to the call-ups and injuries that have occurred this season, Cyclones Head Coach Chuck Weber used 46 different lineups over the 74 regular season and playoff games. The most popular of these lineups only played together a total of six times.

WE WERE THERE A WHILE...: The Cyclones were in first place in the North Division as late as April 4. Until March 23, the club had led the division every day since Dec. 23 (that's 90 days in a row, for those of you following along), a total of more than twelve weeks. It is the longest stretch a Cincinnati pro sports team has been in first place since the Cincinnati Reds (MLB) 1990 wire-to-wire run in winning the World Series. The Cyclones have been in first place 93 of the final 107 days.

DICKMANN'S MONDAY NIGHTS: Every Monday during the season, Cyclones Head Coach Chuck Weber and selected players will be at Dickmann's Sports Cafe (879 Orphanage Rd.--Ft. Wright, KY) from 7-8pm.

WWW.CYCLONESHOCKEY.COM: The most up-to-date information and broadcast of the games can be found on our website www.cycloneshockey.com.

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The opinions expressed in this release are those of the organization issuing it, and do not necessarily reflect the thoughts or opinions of OurSports Central or its staff.

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