CHL Mississippi RiverKings

RiverKings Weekly

October 25, 2010 - Central Hockey League (CHL)
Mississippi RiverKings News Release


RIVERKINGS RECAP: The Mississippi RiverKings won its first regular season game after three consecutive losses on Saturday, October 23rd. The RiverKings defeated the Missouri Mavericks 5-4, scoring five of the last six goals scored, with the final two coming in a span of twenty seconds late in the third period. R.G. Flath scored the game-winning goal with 3:30 left in the game, shortly after teammate Darrell Stoddard had tied the contest with a power play goal with 3:50 remaining. Jeff Christian, Chris Richards (PPG) and Nathan Lutz (PPG) also scored goals for the RiverKings. Goaltender Larry Sterling won his first game of the season in net for Mississippi, as he stopped 19 shots on goal. The RiverKings were 3-for-9 on the power play and outshot the Mavericks 28-23.

IT'S ABOUT TIME: Mississippi's power play finally connected for more than one goal Saturday night for the first time this season, with a trio of tallies put up on the scoreboard. In the previous three games, the RiverKings could muster only one power play goal in each of the three losses. For the season, the 'Kings are now at 20.9% with the man advantage. The last time Mississippi scored more than one power play goal in a regular season game was on March 13th in a 6-4 victory over Bossier-Shreveport. The RiverKings netted four PPG's in eleven tries in that contest.

IMPROVING LITTLE BY LITTLE: By stopping all but one of the six Missouri penalty kill chances on Saturday evening, the RiverKings saw their penalty kill percentage improve slightly, now at 75.9%. Mississippi has yet to score a shorthanded goal and has allowed five shorthanded goals to the opposition.

SHOTS IN THE DARK: Saturday's 28 shots on goal taken by the RiverKings were the second-fewest number of SOGs taken by a Mississippi team this season. By contrast, the 23 Missouri shots marked the fewest number of opponent SOGs in a RiverKings game in 2010-11.

POINT A GAME: After four games of the regular season, two RiverKings are averaging a point a game or more. Playing in three games, Matt Miller has earned four assists for an average of 1.33 points per game. Chris Richards also has four points (2 goals, 2 assists) for a 1.00 per game average.

HOUSE OF HORRORS: While Mississippi has dominated Missouri in regular season meetings at the DeSoto Civic Center in Southaven, the Independence Events Center has been a difficult place to steal points from in the series between the teams, now in its sophomore season. The RiverKings were 1-3-1 against the Mavericks in the Show Me State last year, with the only victory coming in the final meeting of the season on March 7th, 2010. In that game, Mississippi rallied to defeat the Mavericks 5-1. In road games last year in Missouri, the RiverKings were outscored by the Mavericks 22-15.

FAMILIAR SURROUNDINGS: RiverKings forward Jeff Christian will be playing against his former teammates for the second time this season in Friday's game. Christian, a player/assistant coach for the Mavericks last year, led that team with 78 points (29 goals, 49 assists). Last Saturday night against Missouri, the 20-year veteran winger scored his first goal of the season and added an assist in the RiverKings victory.

COMING IN MULTIPLES: For the first time this season, two Mississippi players earned more than one point in a contest. Matt Miller assisted on three of the team's five goals, Chris Richards scored a goal and added two assists, and Jeff Christian and Nathan Lutz each scored a goal and added an assist. In the last regular season game of 2009-10, four RiverKings, including current players Louis Dumont (goal, assist) and Derek Landmesser (goal, assist) tallied more than one point in the team's 5-2 victory over Tulsa.

INJURED RESERVE: Defenseman Milan Maslonka was placed on 10-day injured reserve at the start of the season October 15th and has not seen action this year.

RETURNING HOME: Playing seven of its first nine games at the DeSoto Civic Center, Mississippi returns home after Friday's contest to host the Rio Grande Valley Killer Bees. Saturday night's game (7:05 PM faceoff) will be the only meeting of the year for the Berry Conference rivals, returning a lone season meeting in Hidalgo, Texas last season, won by the Bees. Mississippi plays three more home games to open November before starting its first extended road trip of the season, November 12th through 16th in Rapid City, Colorado, and back to Rapid City.

BROADCASTS: Friday's game at Missouri will be heard on WMFS-AM 1210 AM and Saturday's contest at home against Rio Grande Valley will be aired on WPGF-FM 87.7 FM "The Pig." Air-time for both games will be 6:50 PM with RiverKings Media Coordinator Bob Bakken calling the action. Friday's game will be audio streamed on the Sports 56 WHBQ-AM web site at www.sports56whbq.com. Saturday's game will be audio streamed at www.radiopig.com. Both games will be available on CHL-TV on your computer at http://chltv.neulion.com/chltv/.

TICKETS: For ticket information on the RiverKings' 19th season of hometown professional hockey in the Mid-South, call the RiverKings at 662-342-1755 or go online to www.riverkings.com today!



Central Hockey League Stories from October 25, 2010


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