AHL Stockton Heat

Heat Look to Match Team Record Fifth-Straight Win in San Diego

Published on March 15, 2017 under American Hockey League (AHL)
Stockton Heat News Release


Arena: Valley View Casino Center Date: March 15, 2017 Time: 7:00 p.m. PST Broadcast: AHL Live, Spreaker & iHeartRadio beginning at 6:45 p.m. PST LEADING SCORER: STOCKTON: F Mark Jankowski (51GP, 22-20-42) SAN DIEGO: F Corey Tropp (50GP, 18-30-48)

For the live, in-game tweets, follow @AHLHeat. Stay tuned at the end of the game for the Chase Chevrolet Big Moment of the Game with your chance to win an autographed puck from Andrew Mangiapane.

PLAYOFF IMPLICATIONS With the season wrapping up we want to give you all the scenarios to understand what can happen depending on the outcome of tonight's contests in the Pacific Division, and since it's not as easy as looking just at the points, we want to show you the playoff scenario, which you can see below, with the teams in GREEN currently sitting in a playoff spot.

Rank Team GP W L OTL SOL Current Pts Current PCT PCT with W PCT with OT/SOL PCT with L 1 San Jose 55 37 12 2 4 80 0.727 0.732 0.723 0.714 2 San Diego 54 34 15 3 2 73 0.676 0.682 0.673 0.664 3 Ontario 56 30 17 9 0 69 0.616 0.623 0.614 0.605 4 Stockton 54 26 23 4 1 57 0.528 0.536 0.527 0.518 5 Bakersfield 55 26 23 5 1 58 0.527 0.536 0.527 0.518 6 Tucson 54 24 24 6 0 54 0.500 0.509 0.500 0.491 7 Texas 60 27 29 1 3 58 0.483 0.492 0.484 0.475 8 San Antonio 61 24 32 4 1 53 0.434 0.444 0.435 0.427

The Heat can only stay in fourth with a win tonight as a loss in regulation would move them .009 back of the Condors and a loss in overtime or a shootout would put the Heat and Condors even with a .527 points-percentage, and since they both have 25 regulation and overtime wins, the second tiebreaker is points in the season series, which the Condors own.

HEAT365 - WHERE IT'S ALWAYS HOCKEY SEASON Heat365 is a new and exclusive all-encompassing membership that provides more value than ever. This membership not only includes your season tickets, but also a wide range of other benefits and year-round activities.

Fans will receive many exclusive perks like access to Member-only events with the team, early entry to Stockton Arena through a private entrance and even membership gifts, which will include a specially designed hat, blanket, collector pin and travel mug during the first season of the new initiative available only through Heat365.

For a list of all benefits and how to join visit StocktonHeat.com/Heat365 or call the Heat Front Office at 209.373.1500.

TONIGHT After beating one of the best teams in the West in Grand Rapids on Sunday, the Heat now visit San Diego for the final time this season.

While sitting idle last night, the San Jose Barracuda held off the Bakersfield Condors for the 4-3 win in regulation, which pushed the Heat .000505 ahead of the Condors for the fourth and final playoff spot.

With a win tonight over San Diego, the Heat can put some distance between them and the fifth placed Condors.

LAST TIME VS. SAN DIEGO Back on January 11 in the midst of the most difficult portion of the season, the Heat fell to the Gulls for the first time in regulation all season long. A 3-2 Heat lead would evaporate in the third period with San Diego scoring three unanswered to take the 5-2 win. Kenney Morrison (2 assists) and Matt Frattin both had multi-point efforts in the loss.

WHO TO WATCH With 3 goals in his last four games, Matt Frattin is the player to watch for the Heat in tonight's game against the Gulls.

It's no question that part of the team's resurgence as of late is the play of veteran skaters such as Frattin getting their offensive touch back. In fact, Frattin has 6 goals and 5 assists (11 points) in his last 11 games!

Frattin's resurgence has helped the Heat special teams immensely too as three of his last six goals have been power-play markers and he's also recorded a shorthanded goal, making four of his last six goals coming while a man up or a man down.

For the Heat power play to continue to improve, Frattin will need to continue to be a presence on the power-play unit as the forward is second on the team with 6 power-play goals and is tied for second on the team with 12 power-play points.

Look for Frattin to continue his strong play as of late tonight to help the Heat capture another big win!

UNBELIE-VEY-BLE Linden Vey has been a force to be reckoned with! He not only has points in seven straight (2-8-10), tying a Heat team record, but has points in nine of his last 10 (4-10-14) and tied the Heat's all-time record of five-straight games with an assist set by D Colby Robak to start this season (Robak had 5 assists).

With a point tonight he'd break a team record by posting an eight game points streak, beating both Derek Grant (accomplished twice, 12 points and 15 points) and Mark Jankowski (8 points) for the longest streak in team history. Against the Gulls, Vey is third on the team in scoring with 9 points (1-8-9) in 8 games played.

JANKOWSKI JOINS ELITE COMPANY On Saturday, Mark Jankowski became the second rookie this season to reach the 20-goal mark and is one of just five rookies who've suited up for the Flames AHL affiliate since 2005-06 to reach the 20-goal plateau including David Wolf in 2014-15 (ADK-20G), Markus Granlund in 2013-14 (ABB-25G), Dustin Boyd in 2006-07 (OMA-27G) and David Moss in 2005-06 (OMA-21G). Not only that, Jankowski is the third ever Heat player to reach 20 in a season.

He added two goals on Wednesday taking over as the rookie goal scoring leader with 22 and is just 8 points back of the rookie scoring leader Daniel O'Regan (SJ) who has 50 points.

Jankowski is just the second Heat player to ever record a 20-goal, 20-assist season as Kenny Agostino had 23-34-57 last year. Jankowski has 22-20-42 in his rookie season.

GOING STREAKING The Heat have now won a season-high, four-straight games, and with a win tonight, can tie a Heat all-time record of five-straight wins. During the streak, the Heat have outscored opponents 16-8 and last Saturday in Bakersfield, ended a long streak of 13-straight road games without a win.

CZECH YOURSELF BEFORE YOUR WRECK YOURSELF David Rittich ranks among the best goalies in the league, ranking third with a 2.09 GAA, third with a .929 SV%, ranks second with 5 shutouts and leads all rookie goalies in those categories. He's now won four-straight starts dating back to Feb. 26 vs. TEX.

STOCKTON DOMINATES SEASON SERIES Althought the Gulls find themselves in second, the Heat have dominated the season series, going 6-1-0-1 against San Diego this year.

Since the teams last met though, the Gulls have been one of the best in the league, posting a 19-3-1-1 record since January 13. Meanwhile Stockton went 8-13-1-0 in that same span.

Counting tonight, only two games remain in the season series. The Heat are 12-6-0-2 against San Diego all-time.

INTERESTING FACT Danish forward Mikkel Aagaard recorded his first multi-point game in his AHL career on Sunday, assisting on Matt Frattin's opening tally and scoring one of his own later in the game.

However, it's not the only multi-point game this season for Aagaard, as he's recorded 10 multi-point efforts in the ECHL this season with the Adirondack Thunder.

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