Corridor Cross Checks: Mark Carlson approaches USHL wins record

CEDAR RAPIDS — The Carly Watch is in high gear.

That’s what the United States Hockey League is calling Cedar Rapids RoughRiders head coach Mark Carlson’s chase of the league’s all-time coaching victories record.

The RoughRiders picked up a pair of wins this past weekend: beating Dubuque on the road, 5-4, in overtime, and Chicago at home, 5-2. Those were the 780th and 781st wins of Carlson’s career.

He is the only head coach/general manager the RoughRiders have had, hired for the club’s inaugural 1999-200 season. P.K. O’Handley (North Iowa and Waterloo) has the USHL wins record of 783.

“We’ve got a game Friday night at Dubuque, and that’s my only focus,” Carlson said.

The win over Dubuque was especially dramatic, as Cedar Rapids rallied from 4-1 down, getting a game-tying goal from Loa Milfors with just nine seconds left in regulation. Defenseman Joe Schiller’s goal 3:06 into OT won the game.

Landan Resendes scored just two minutes into the game against Chicago, as the RoughRiders never trailed. Hans-Martin Ulvebne had two goals in the game for Cedar Rapids.

Milfors and Ulvebne are in-season additions to the club, Milfors coming over recently from Sweden and Ulvebne (a resident of Norway) in a trade from Chicago. James Norton, who was brought in recently from the North American Hockey League, made the start in net both games for C.R., which is 16-19-4-2 for 38 standings points.

That places it seventh of eight teams in the USHL Eastern Conference, one point back of Chicago for sixth and the final available playoff spot in the division.

“I really do like the mix (of players we’ve got),” Carlson said. “We’ve got something like seven or eight players, maybe, who weren’t with us at the beginning of the season. It’s not ideal, but necessary. We really like the group, we like the character of the guys. We’ve seen some scoring from some guys who have just started playing, and we think they’ll continue to score. So there are a lot positives.”

Iowa Heartlanders

There are great-great wins and tough-tough losses. The Iowa Heartlanders experienced both last weekend.

Iowa split a pair of home games at Xtream Arena with the Cincinnati Cyclones, winning this past Friday night, 4-3, and losing Saturday night, 2-1.

Yuki Miura’s goal 4:43 into the third period gave the Heartlanders a 4-1 lead Friday night. But Cincinnati rallied for a pair of goals and had a penalty shot to tie with eight seconds left.

Iowa goaltender Hunter Jones stopped Sahil Panwar on that attempt to preserve the victory.

Will Calverley staked the Heartlanders to a 1-0 lead Saturday night with a goal midway through the second period. But Cincinnati tied it later in the period and won it on an Ole Julian Bjorgvik-Holm goal with just four seconds to go in regulation.

The dramatics kept the Cyclones one point ahead of the Heartlanders in the ECHL Central Division standings. Iowa is 19-20-5-2 for 45 points to Cincy’s 46.

Toledo leads the division with 63 standings points, followed by Wheeling (58), Indy (54), Fort Wayne (52) and Kalamazoo (49). The top four teams in the division qualify for the league’s Kelly Cup playoffs.

Iowa hosts Indy in a Wednesday night game, with opening puck drop at 6:35. The Heartlanders and Fuel also play Friday night (6:35) and Saturday night (6:05) at Xtream Arena.

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