AHL Peoria Rivermen

Rivermen Break Slide With Shootout Win Over Rampage

Published on February 15, 2008 under American Hockey League (AHL)
Peoria Rivermen News Release


The Peoria Rivermen broke out of its February slide with a crowd-pleasing 4-3 shootout win over the San Antonio Rampage on Friday night.

A physical tilt from the opening bell, the first period featured one goal but three scraps and electrified the crowd.

Less than two minutes into the period the hitting started, with Alexander Hellstrom laying a check against a Rampage player in the Peoria zone and touching off an explosion of checks for the next two minutes.

Then at 12:40 Alex Brooks had enough attention from Curtis Fraser, resulting in the first of three scraps in the period.

Sandwiched in between the fisticuffs was Peoria's first goal of the night, a Charles Linglet marker set up by Martin Kariya and Julian Talbot at 16:55 to give the Rivermen a 1-0 lead through 20 minutes of play.

Chris Durno opened the second period with his first of two goals on the night just 62 seconds into the frame, taking a Matt Murley feed and beating Hannu Toivonen through a screen from the slot to tie the game.

Peoria came back at 6:28 when Nikolay Lemtyugov tipped home a loose puck at the side of a sprawling Josh Tordjman (35 saves) for his 15th goal of the year from Linglet and Nicholas Drazenovic for a 2-1 advantage at intermission.

Durno struck again with a power play goal at 5:03 of the third period to even the game, followed by Matt Murley's man advantage goal at 9:58 that thrust the Rampage into the lead for the first time in the contest.

Once again the Rivermen would rally to mount pressure on the Rampage goal, finally breaking through when Micki DuPont's point shot beat Tordjman through the five-hole at 13:33, tying the game one last time and forcing overtime.

There, the Rampage had the best chance of the night to secure two points when the team was awarded a penalty shot with just 28 seconds remaining in overtime. Brooks dove into the goal crease to cover the puck as it squirted behind Toivonen, resulting in the automatic awarding of the chance to San Antonio. Brendan Bell was selected to take the shot, and tried to slide the puck through Toivonen's legs on the backhand, but the Rivermen backstop closed the gap just in time and the game moved into a shootout.

It was there that Lemtyugov marked in the second round and Bell got his revenge in round five against Toivonen, evening the shootout at 1-1 through four-and-a-half rounds.

Julian Talbot then took center stage, moving in quickly and cutting wide right, then moving across in front of the net and beating Tordjman to give Peoria the shootout win and break the team's seven-game winless stretch that has seen them record just a single point in the month of February.

The Rivermen will now have six days away from game action before returning to the ice against the Quad City Flames at the iWireless Center on Friday night at 7:05 pm. The next Rivermen home game is Sunday, February 24 against the Manitoba Moose at a special 4 pm start time. The game will still be a Comcast Cable and Peoria Journal Star Family Fun on the Run Day, with $1 upper bowl tickets for all kids 12-and-under, $1 hot dogs, Cokes, and bags of chips from 3-4 pm, a post-game skate with the team, and more! Tickets are on sale now through the Peoria Civic Center Box Office, all TicketMaster locations, on line at www.TicketMaster.com, or charge by phone at (309) 676-8700.

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American Hockey League Stories from February 15, 2008


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