AHL Peoria Rivermen

Rivermen Weekly

Published on January 26, 2009 under American Hockey League (AHL)
Peoria Rivermen News Release


UPCOMING PROMOTIONS

All Wednesday Games - Pilot's House tickets to all Rivermen Wednesday home games are available for just $8 until the end of the season.

Saturday, January 31 - US Cellular presents Cody Linley of ABC's "Dancing with the Stars" and Disney's "Hannah Montana," will be signing autographs from 6:30-8:30 p.m. The Rivermen will be wearing white St. Louis Blues jerseys that will be auctioned off after the game to benefit the Children's Hospital of Illinois. Meliss' Beauty and Grooming Source will be giving "Haircuts for Charity" to raise additional funds.

Friday, February 13 - Peoria Rivermen Fan Night at the St. Louis Blues Game. Tickets are available exclusively to Rivermen fans for up to $70 off. Please visit http://rivermen.net/news/index.html?article_id=1819 for more information and an order form.

WEEK 16 IN REVIEW (1-1-0)

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

Fri. 1/23 @ Houston 5-2 L Fast, Reaves Ben Bishop (4/12)/Chris Holt (0/10)

Sat. 1/24 @ Houston 3-2 W Porter, Regier (2) Chris Holt (2/30)

@ Houston (1/23): The Houston Aeros scored three times in the second period en route to a 5-2 win over the Peoria Rivermen on Friday night at the Toyota Center. T. J Fast and Ryan Reaves scored goals for Peoria as the Rivermen are now 1-1-1 against the Aeros this season. For Fast it was the first goal of his professional career. The Rivermen went 0-for-5 on the power play and has now gone three consecutive games without scoring on the man-advantage for the first time this season. The Aeros scored twice in their five chances. Ben Bishop was replaced by Chris Holt at 13:12 of the second period after allowing his fourth goal. Holt made 10 saves over his 24:43 of work.

@ Houston (1/24): Steve Regier scored twice, including the game-winner, as the Peoria Rivermen beat the Houston Aeros 3-2 on Saturday night in front of 8,696 at the Toyota Center. Chris Holt started for the first time since Jan. 3 and made 30 saves in the win. The Rivermen split the weekend series with the Aeros and have gone 2-2-0 in the first four games of a five-game trip. The win pushed the Rivermen into fifth place, only two points behind Rockford and Houston who are tied for second. Peoria never trailed in the game as they built themselves a 2-0 lead and held on for the victory.

TEAM LEADERS

THIS SEASON THIS WEEK

POINTS Regier - 33 Regier/Whitfield - 3

GOALS Regier - 14 Regier - 2

ASSISTS Regier - 19 Whitfield - 3

POWER PLAY 41-for-244, 16.8% 1-for-10, 10.0%

PENALTY KILL 188-for-228, 82.5% 9-for-13, 69.2%

NEWS AND NOTES

All-Star Break...With 35 games left to play on their 80-game schedule, the Rivermen enter the all-star break with a record of 23-20-1-1. Their 48 points currently seat them in fifth place, just two points back of second and only one point out of a potential playoff spot. Last season the Rivermen were 27-13-4-3 at the all-star break (January 28).

Junland Represents...Jonas Junland will be playing for PlanetUSA during the 2009 AHL All-Star Classic in Worcester, Mass. On Sunday he was part of the PlanetUSA winning team in the skills competition that defeated the Canadian squad 18-12. He competed in the Hardest Shot competition with his shots clocked at 84.3 mph and 87.5. Derek Joslin of Worcester won the event with a shot of 98.6 mph.

New Year...The Rivermen are just 4-5-0 in January. They have not gone below .500 in any of the previous three months this season. They still have two games remaining before February.

5 goals...Friday's loss was the first time in 23 games that the Rivermen allowed five goals. No game had featured more than four goals for either team since the Rivemen 7-6 win over Chicago on Dec. 3.

An early lead... The Rivermen are 16-5-2 when scoring the first goal of a game and just 7-15-0 when having to play from behind.

Regier returns to form...Steve Regier scored twice on Saturday and now has five points (3g, 2a) in his last five games. He registered 17 points (9g, 8a) in his first 15 games of the season but had scored just two goals in his first 18 games back after returning from St. Louis. He now leads the Rivermen in goals (14), assists (19), points (33), plus/minus (+9), and game-winning goals (4).

Bad Boys...Matt Foy and Jeff Cowan received game misconducts for their roles in a fight at the end of the second period on Friday. The Rivermen have now recorded eight game misconducts this season which is tied for most in the league along with Syracuse. Peoria is averaging 20.62 minutes per game, sixth most in the AHL.

Back-to-back...The last time the Rivermen won back-to-back games was Dec. 21 and 26 when they defeated the Houston Aeros and the Grand Rapids Griffins. Both of those wins came by a 4-3 score and occurred after regulation was already completed. The last time Peoria won two-straight in regulation was Dec. 11 and 12 when they beat Hamilton (2-1) and Rochester (2-0) on the road.

Same team, different result...On Saturday the Rivermen avenged their loss to the Houston Aeros from Friday night. They are now 4-2-1 in the second game when playing back-to-back games against the same teams.

Cold Spell...The Rivermen power play broke an 0-for-18 scoreless drought with Steve Regier's goal in the third period on Saturday. They were held scoreless in their three previous games, for the firs time this season, and are now 10-for-their-last-93 (10.7%) on the man-advantage. Since December 10, the Rivermen have been shutout on the power play 13 times in 21 games. That only happened four times in the first 24 games of the season.

Peoria PK...The penalty kill for the Rivermen struggled again this week by allowing two power-play goals in each of their two games. They have now allowed at least one power-play goal in nine of their last 11 games. They have killed off just 38 of their last 53 penalties (71.6 percent) which is well below their season total of 82.5 percent.

WEEK 17 PREVIEW

Iowa Chops

National Hockey League Parent Club Anaheim Ducks

Record 22-18-2-3

Standings Points (Relative to Rivermen) 49 (+1)

West Division Standing 4th

Rivermen Record Against 1-3-1

Leading Scorer Andrew Ebbett (10g, 19a, 29pts)

Starting Goaltender J.P. Levasseur (10-10-2, 3.16 GAA, .886 sv%)

AHL Power-Play Rank 15th - 17.2%

AHL Penalty-Kill Rank t-15th - 82.8%

*All statistics as of 1/26/09

RECENT TRANSACTIONS

01/24/2009 Josh Soares (F) DEL Released from PTO

01/22/2009 Alexander Hellstrom (D) DEL Reassigned by St. Louis (NHL) to Alaska (ECHL)

01/20/2009 Steve Wagner (D) ADD Returned on loan from St. Louis (NHL)

01/20/2009 Trent Whitfield (C) ADD Returned on loan from St. Louis (NHL)

Check out the Peoria Rivermen Statistics

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American Hockey League Stories from January 26, 2009


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