AHL Peoria Rivermen

Rivermen Weekly

Published on December 29, 2008 under American Hockey League (AHL)
Peoria Rivermen News Release


UPCOMING PROMOTIONS

Present - December 31 - Pilot's House tickets to all Rivermen home games are available for just $8 until the end of 2008.

Present - January 11 - Kids 12 and under can get a $5 lower bowl ticket through Coca-Cola kids special. Tickets are available at the Peoria Civic Center box office and fans must mention the Coke Kids Special.

Wednesday, December 31 - Rivermen and Centerplate team up to offer $1 beer and $1 hot dogs during the New Year's Eve game against the Milwaukee Admirals.

Wednesday, January 7 - All fans that bring their business card to the Peoria Civic Center box office will receive a $20 lower bowl ticket for just $5. Plus the Rivermen will be holding a drawing with the collected business cards for a FREE party box suite.

WEEK 12 IN REVIEW (1-1-1)

DAY DATE OPPONENT RESULT RIVERMEN GOALS RIVERMEN GOALIE (GA/SV)

Fri. 12/26 @ Grand Rapids 4-3 OTW Filewich, Junland, Talbot, Fletcher Chris Holt (3/28)

Sat. 12/27 vs. San Antonio 3-1 L Conner Chris Holt (2/20)

Sun. 12/28 vs. Houston 4-3 SOL Conner, Reaves, Drazenovic Ben Bishop (3/23)

@ Grand Rapids (12/26): Justin Fletcher picked a good time for his first goal of the season. It came at 2:51 of overtime as the Peoria Rivermen defeated the Grand Rapids Griffins 4-3 on Friday night at Van Andel Arena. The Rivermen won their third consecutive game and have now beaten the Griffins in both meetings this season. Jonathan Filewich, playing in his second game with Peoria since being acquired in a trade from Pittsburgh, had a goal and two assists to help the Rivermen overcome two separate one-goal leads. Chris Holt made 28 saves to earn his fifth win of the season. It was the first time this year that Holt allowed more than two goals in a game.

vs. San Antonio (12/27): Josh Tordjman turned aside 31 shots by the Peoria Rivermen to keep the Rivermen off the board for the final 40 minutes of the game as his San Antonio Rampage won 3-1 at Carver Arena on Saturday night. The loss snapped the Rivermen's three-game winning streak and was just their fourth regulation loss on home ice this season. Peoria and San Antonio have now split their first two games of the season with their next meeting coming on January 2.

The teams accounted for three fights and a combined 56 penalty minutes. Steve Regier and Simon Ferguson dropped the gloves just six seconds into the second period while Eric Neilson and Francis Lessard followed at 8:56. Trent Whitfield and Garth Murray exchanged punches following the conclusion of the game. It was the first fights of the year for both Regier and Whitfield.

vs. Houston (12/28): Corey Locke's goal with 0.2 seconds left in regulation forced overtime and led to a Houston Aeros 4-3 shootout win over the Peoria Rivermen on Sunday night at Carver Arena. The Aeros stormed back from down 3-0 in the final three minutes to steal a win away for the Rivermen. Ben Bishop was 2:36 away from his second shutout of the season when Paul Albers banged home a rebound to end the bid. With the Houston net empty and a six-on-five advantage for the Aeros, Peter Olveky and Locke both scored at 19:00 and 19:59 respectively. Bishop stopped three of five in the shootout but Nolan Schaefer stoned all four Rivermen shooters. Barry Brust played the entire game in goal for the Aeros before Schaefer was inserted for the shootout.

TEAM LEADERS

THIS SEASON THIS WEEK

POINTS Regier - 25 Conner/Filewich - 4

GOALS Conner - 13 Conner - 2

ASSISTS Regier - 14 Filewich - 3

POWER PLAY 37-for-192, 19.3% 3-for-13, 23.1%

PENALTY KILL 147-for-175, 84.0% 14-for-16, 87.5%

NEWS AND NOTES

Carving the Competition...For the first time this season the Rivermen lost back-to-back games on home ice, falling to San Antonio on Saturday and Houston on Sunday. Peoria is still an impressive 11-4-1-1 at Carver Arena, tied for the best home mark in the West Division with Rockford.

Slim Wins...11 of the Rivermen's last 15 games have been decided by just a single goal, including five of them being decided in an overtime or a shootout. The Rivermen have now played 14 one-goal games and are 8-4-1-1 in those contests. 24 of the Rivermen's 34 total games have been decided by two goals or less.

December to Remember...Peoria is 8-4-1 in their first 13 games in the month of December. They have already passed their win total for November (6) and still have two games remaining before the New Year. It's not a bad time to get hot with the Rivermen playing 15 games during the year's final month, more than any other month on the schedule. Last year the Rivermen were 7-5-2 in December.

Ironman...With Nicholas Drazenovic missing Sunday's game due to illness, the Rivermen no longer have a player with the chance to appear in all 80 regular season games. Drazenovic was the last man standing after playing in 30 consecutive games to start the year. Last season, Charles Linglet, Trent Whitfield and Chris Porter played in all 80 games.

Century Mark...Justin Fletcher's overtime game winner on Friday was the Rivermen's 100th goal of the season. They were the seventh team in the AHL to reach that mark and are averaging 3.06 goals per game.

Super Talbot...Julian Talbot may be tied for the team lead in goals with 11, but he is the run away winner in power-play goal production at this point. Nine of his 11 goals have come with the Rivermen on the man advantage.

Busy Schedule...The Rivermen completed a stretch of three games in three nights over the weekend. Peoria has done this six times now this season. They are 4-1-1 in the middle game and 4-1-1 in the final game. Friday was the first time the Rivermen won the first game of the tough stretch (1-5-0).

Streak Stopped...Again...Peoria had their three game winning streak stopped on Saturday night by the San Antonio Rampage. It is the fourth time this season the Rivermen have been able to run off three wins in a row. Peoria is 0-4-0 in games following their third straight win.

Trying to get to 20...The Rivermen came up short twice this week in search of their 20th win. Peoria has two more chances to become the fastest AHL Rivermen team to reach 20 wins. The 2006-07 Rivs hit the 20 win mark in their 37th game on January 9, 2007.

Shortcake...Ryan Reaves' shorthanded goal on Sunday was the ninth shorty of the season for Peoria. The Rivermen are now tied with Hamilton for the most in the AHL. 19 of the 29 teams in the league have scored fewer than five shorthanded goals this season.

WEEK 13 PREVIEW

Grand Rapids Griffins

National Hockey League Parent Club Detroit Red Wings

Record 18-7-4-3

Standings Points (Relative to Rivermen) 43 (n/a)

NORTH Division Standing t-1st

Rivermen Record Against 2-0-0

Leading Scorer Ville Leino (8g, 19a - 27pts)

Starting Goaltender Jimmy Howard (7-8-2, 2.75 GAA, .897 sv%)

AHL Power-Play Rank 10th - 19.2% (34-for-177)

AHL Penalty-Kill Rank 2nd - 87.0% (140-for-161)

Milwaukee Admirals

National Hockey League Parent Club Nashville Predators

Record 20-9-0-1

Standings Points (Relative to Rivermen) 41 (+1)

West Division Standing 1st

Rivermen Record Against 1-2-0

Leading Scorer Mike Santorelli (11g, 24a - 35pts)

Starting Goaltender Drew MacIntyre (14-6-1, 2.74 GAA, .907 sv%)

AHL Power-Play Rank 3rd - 21.4% (34-for-159)

AHL Penalty-Kill Rank 4th - 85.5% (148-for-173)

San Antonio Rampage

National Hockey League Parent Club Phoenix Coyotes

Record 11-22-0-1

Standings Points (Relative to Rivermen) 23 (-17)

West Division Standing 8th

Rivermen Record Against 1-1-0

Leading Scorer Chad Kalorik (10g, 9a - 19pts)

Starting Goaltender Josh Tordjman (10-11-1, 2.59 GAA, .908 sv%)

AHL Power-Play Rank 27th - 12.1% (21-for-173)

AHL Penalty-Kill Rank 10th - 83.8% (145-for-173)

*All statistics as of 12/29/08

RECENT TRANSACTIONS

12/27/2008 Marek Schwarz (G) DEL Reassigned by St. Louis (NHL) to Alaska (ECHL)

12/26/2008 Marek Schwarz (G) ADD Reassigned by St. Louis (NHL) from Alaska (ECHL)

12/23/2008 Cam Paddock (C) ADD Returned on loan from St. Louis (NHL)

12/22/2008 Cam Paddock (C) DEL Recalled from loan by St. Louis (NHL)

12/22/2008 Marek Schwarz (G) DEL Reassigned by St. Louis (NHL) to Alaska (ECHL)

12/22/2008 Tomas Kana (LW) DEL Reassigned by St. Louis (NHL) to Alaska (ECHL)

Check out the Peoria Rivermen Statistics

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American Hockey League Stories from December 29, 2008


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