Houston Sunk in 4-3 Loss to Rivermen

March 13, 2010 - American Hockey League (AHL)
Houston Aeros News Release


HOUSTON - LW Nicholas Drazenovic scored a pair, including the game-winner at 18:58 of the third period, to lead the Peoria Rivermen (31-27-2-6) past the Houston Aeros (29-29-6-2) 4-3 in front of 9,614 at Toyota Center Friday night. RW J-M Daoust also scored twice and C Nathan Smith added a third marker for Houston while G Anton Khudobin (11-16-2) stopped 17 of 20 shots in the loss. G Joe Fallon (17-12-1) made 28 saves in the victory.

BOXSCORE

The two clubs played to a physical first period that saw three fights and three goals scored. The Aeros scored first at the 4:19 mark when D Jamie Fraser sent a backdoor feed through traffic to the stick of Daoust, who banged it past Fallon for his first goal since Feb. 13 vs. Grand Rapids. With the assist, Fraser extended his point streak (3-5=8) to eight games; D Ryan Gunderson got the secondary assist to extend his assist streak to three games. Daoust struck again at 9:10 after corralling a rebound in front and sending a backhander to the twine tying him with RW Jon DiSalvatore for the team-lead with 19 goals on the season. Fraser and Gunderson were again credited with the helpers.

Peoria cut the lead in half when it found the scoreboard at 16:22. RW Barry Tallackson sent a slap pass to the tape of C Lars Eller who deked around Khudobin for his 14th of the campaign.

At the 6:11 mark of the second period the Rivermen knotted the game at two goals apiece with a power play goal. Drazenovic fired a point shot on net that found its way past Khudobin for his 17th of the season, tying Tallackson for the club-lead.

Peoria took its first lead of the game 16:47 into the final session off the stick of LW Chris Porter. The Aeros went on the power play at 17:44 before pulling Khudobin for the extra attacker, but Drazenovic snapped home a short-handed empty-netter at 18:58 to extend the Rivermen lead to 4-2. Smith would bring the Aeros to within a goal scoring on the power play with 33.3 seconds left in regulation, but that's as close as they'd get.

Houston outshot the Rivermen 28-21. The Aeros went 1-for-5 on the power play while Peoria converted on 1-of-4 opportunities on the man advantage. Houston falls to 4-2-0-0 against the Rivermen this season. The two clubs will meet for two more contests this season, both at Carver Arena Mar. 27 and 28.

The Aeros travel to Chicago to take on the first place Wolves in a 7:00 p.m. match-up tomorrow night at Allstate Arena. Watch the game live on ahllive.com or listen to Joe O'Donnell's call on 1070 AM-KNTH. Follow the interactive in-game blog on aeros.com.



American Hockey League Stories from March 13, 2010


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