AHL Stockton Heat

Heat Index: the Weekly News and Notes of the Stockton Heat

November 23, 2015 - American Hockey League (AHL)
Stockton Heat News Release


News and Notes

- The Stockton Heat are on their longest point streak of the season having picked up at least a point in four-straight games since the November 13 match-up in San Antonio. The Heat are also on their longest win streak of the season with wins in three-straight contests.

- After appearing in nine games with the Calgary Flames, Derek Grant was reassigned to the Heat and in his first game back with the team, he had his second multi-goal game of the season, scoring two goals in the game on Wednesday against San Diego.

- Turner Elson is tied for the league lead with 2 shorthanded goals. Both Drew Shore and Aaron Johnson are tied for first in shorthanded assists with two.

- Stockton leads the league averaging 35 shots per game.

Approaching Milestones

- Colton Orr is 2 PIMS away from 600 in his AHL career. The forward has 1186 PIMS in the NHL.

- Bill Arnold is just 8 points shy of 50 career AHL points.

- Brett Kulak is 5 games away from 50 career AHL games.

- Blair Riley is 6 games away from playing in 300 AHL games.

- Heat captain Aaron Johnson is just 10 points away from 200 career AHL points.

- Garnet Hathaway is 9 games away from 100 career AHL games.

- Head Coach Ryan Huska is 12 games away from coaching in his 100th AHL game. He's just 8 games away from coaching in his 600th game as a head coach (504 games with the Kelowna Rockets of the WHL)

Recently Accomplished Milestones

- Freddie Hamilton scored his 50th career AHL goal on Wednesday against San Diego.

- Emile Poirier notched his 50th career AHL point on Wednesday with an assist against San Diego.

- Kenny Agostino registered his 50th career AHL point when he scored his first goal for the Stockton Heat on Saturday against San Jose.

- After suiting up during Wednesday's and Saturday's games for the Heat, team captain Aaron Johnson skated in his 700th combined NHL and AHL game during the game against San Jose.

What a Win

The Stockton Heat persevered on Saturday over their Norcal rival, the San Jose Barracuda in an interesting game.

The Heat built the 2-0 lead just 8:13 into the game before San Jose would score one in the second and two in the third to take the lead. Emile Poirier's tying goal with 8:55 to go in the game sent it to overtime and eventually the shootout. Kevin Poulin, who had stopped 30 of 33 in the contest suffered a freak injury during the first shot attempt in the first round and was helped off the ice, thrusting Kent Simpson into action. Simpson watched as his team continued to score in the skills competition and eventually made the save needed to secure the win in the fifth round.

It was Simpson's first AHL win since March 20, 205 when he was playing for the Bridgeport Sound Tigers despite the performance going down on the scoresheet as 0 saves on 0 shots!

Stopping the Scoring Slump

For Kenny Agostino and Emile Poirier, it's been tough for the pair in the goal departments this season. The last time that the two scored happened to be during the same game while with the Adirondack Flames last season on April 18.

The pair would however finally break their respective goal scoring droughts on Saturday when Agostino put a wrist shot off a broken play in the slot past the San Jose goaltender while Poirier finished with a one-timer from the slot off a Derek Grant pass.

Agostino finished the game with his third multi-point effort of the season (1-1-2), while Poirier had his second multi-point game (1-1-2) of the year in the win.

Straight Into Ontario

The Heat make the trip down to Southern California to take on the Ontario Reign this Wednesday hoping for a better effort against the Reign than their first game back on November 7 that took place at Stockton Arena.

While the Heat peppered Peter Budaj with 38 shots, the Slovakian netminder stopped everything thrown at him for his fourth shutout of the year. Jordan Samuels-Thomas recorded the hat trick en route to the 4-0 win for the Reign at Stockton Arena.

However that came on the heels of the most difficult stretch of hockey this season for the Heat. Now the Heat are coming in with a far better record to match their renewed offensive confidence. The Heat have won three straight games and have picked up points in the last four games. During this four-game stretch of points the Heat have outscored opponents 17-11 and have outshot opponents 165-123.

Post-Thanksgiving Home and Home with Bako

This weekend the Heat will play a home and home series with the Bakersfield Condors with the Heat hosting the first game on Friday at 7:30 before the team will head down the California-99 to Rabobank Arena on Saturday.

The teams have met up just once this season with the Condors narrowly defeating the Heat 2-1 on November 6 to kick off Hot Pink 1.

Shooting for the Shootout

So far this season, the Stockton Heat have played three games that have needed extra time and all have made it past the three-on-three overtime and needed the shootout to decide the victor. The first two games have resulted in defeat for the Heat but the last game against the Barracuda on Saturday was the first win in the skills competition for the Heat.

In 12 shootout attempts this year, the Heat have struck gold on six of them while now all three of the Heat's goalies, Jon Gillies, Kevin Poulin and Kent Simpson, have faced four shooters with varying degrees of success.

Gillies leads the Heat with a 75% stop rate in the shootout while Poulin has been unable to make a stop in his four chances. Simpson has allowed two on four shots.

So far this season, Drew Shore has been the man to get the job done for the Heat as he's scored on both of his chances. Kenny Agostino ranks second on the team behind him scoring on 2 of 3 followed by Freddie Hamilton's 1 for 2 mark and Markus Granlund's 1 for 3 mark.

Derek Grant and Bill Arnold are the only other players to shoot in the shootout and were held off the scoresheet.

Records:

Last Week's Record: 2-0-0-0, 4 points

Overall Record: 5-5-0-2, 0.500 Win Percentage, 6th in the Pacific Division

Last Week's Results:

Nov. 18 - Stockton Heat 4 vs. San Diego 0

Nov. 21 - Stockton Heat 4 vs. San Jose 3 (SO)

This Week's Schedule:

Wed. Nov. 25 - Stockton Heat at Ontario Reign - Citizens Business Bank Arena (7:00 p.m.)

Fri. Nov. 27- Stockton Heat vs. Bakersfield Condors - Stockton Arena (7:30 p.m.)

Sat. Nov. 28- Stockton Heat at Bakersfield Condors - Rabobank Arena (7:00 p.m.)

Recent Transactions

11/16 - Derek Grant assigned to the Stockton Heat by the Calgary Flames

Team Leaders

Goals: Markus Granlund and Derek Grant with 5

Assists: Kenny Agostino with 7

Points: Markus Granlund with 9

PIMs: Austin Carroll with 16

Wins: Jon Gillies and Kevin Poulin with 2

Losses: Jon Gillies with 3

GAA (Played at least 5 games): Jon Gillies with 2.31

SV% (Played at least 5 games): Jon Gillies with 0.920

Team Stats

Goals For: Week: 8 | Overall: 32

Goals Against: Week: 3 | Overall: 32

Power Play: 8-61 (13.1%), T-23rd in AHL

Penalty Kill: 45-52 (86.5%), 7th in AHL

Records vs. Opponents

Pacific Division:

Bakersfield Condors (0-1-0-0)

Ontario (0-1-0-0)

San Antonio (0-1-0-1)

San Diego (1-1-0-1)

San Jose (1-1-0-0)

Texas (2-0-0-0)

TOTALS vs. PACIFIC: (4-5-0-2)

Central Division:

Rockford (1-0-0-0)

TOTALS vs. CENTRAL: (1-0-0-0)

Calgary Flames (NHL)

Record Last Week: 2-0-0, 4 points

Record Overall: 8-12-1, .381 Win Percentage, 6th in Pacific Division

This Week's Schedule:

Tue. Nov. 24- Flames at Anaheim (7:00 p.m. PST)

Fri. Nov. 27- Flames at Arizona (6:00 p.m. PST)

Sat. Nov. 28- Flames at San Jose(7:00 p.m. PST)

Adirondack Thunder (ECHL)

Record Last Week: 1-0-0, 2 points

Record Overall: 10-2-0, .833 Win Percentage, 1st in East Division

This Week's Schedule:

Wed. Nov. 25 - Thunder vs. Elmira (4:00 p.m. PST)

Sat. Nov. 28 - Thunder at Elmira (4:05 p.m. PST)

Sun. Nov. 29 - Thunder vs. Greenville (Noon PST)

Check out the Stockton Heat Statistics



American Hockey League Stories from November 23, 2015


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