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ECHL Toledo Walleye

Walleye March Closer To Postseason

March 28, 2010 - ECHL (ECHL)
Toledo Walleye News Release


Toledo, OH - Toledo hosted Kalamazoo on Sunday night in the last home game of the regular season. With the season coming to a close, the Walleye needed a big night to pave the way to the postseason. The offense showed up in a big way, burying the visiting Wings to edge the Walleye closer to playoff contention.

In the first period, on a power-play, Sal Peralta sniped a wrister from the top of the circle to make it 1-0 at 11:07. The first was a hard and equally fought battle with big plays on each end of the ice, and finished with only the lone goal and 13 shots apiece. The difference maker was goaltender Jordan Pearce, who on a very important penalty shot poke-checked the save to keep the Wings off the board.

"Jordan [Pearce] was tremendous throughout the entire game, and he helped buy our offense time to get rolling for the rest of the game," said Head Coach Nick Vitucci.

The offense exploded during an eventful second period, bringing a string of goals for the Walleye with four more from as many players. Maxime Tanguay netted his 25th of the season from a text-book give-and-go play with JC Sawyer and Akim Aliu at 9:15. Over a minute later, Sal Peralta lifted a shot point-blank to the cross-bar, that required further review from the game officials. The goal was ruled as good as he notched his second of the night to get the crowd on its feet.

Forwards Evan Rankin and Scooter Smith got on the board as well to build the lead to 5-0. Smith's goal occurred with just thirty seconds left to get Lucas County Arena poised for a big third period.

"When we were in control of the tempo, we just didn't look back, much like last night," said Vitucci. "Having the lead made it so we could play aggressively to preserve the win."

The Wings came into the third with a chip on their shoulder, out-scoring the Walleye for the period. Even though the shutout was lost, Pearce did continue to make play after play, stopping 53 of 56 Kalamazoo shots, including a diving play on a two-on-one breakaway midway through the third. Toledo added another goal to put the game out of reach when Tony Romano netted his 14th of the season. The Walleye won it 6-3 and move in to a tie with Reading for seventh in the conference.

Playoff Update: After play on Sunday, the Walleye are tied with Reading for the seventh seed with three left to play in the regular season. If the Walleye can clinch, they may be playing at LCA either April 6-7 OR April 9-10, depending on the matchups.

Following the Fish: Toledo has welcomed 226,575 fans through the turnstyles at Lucas County Arena this season, seeing more fans than any other professional franchise in Toledo hockey history. The record was previously set by the 1977-78 Toledo Goaldiggers.

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