Corridor Cross Checks: Hawke Huff adds offense to his game for Cedar Rapids RoughRiders

CEDAR RAPIDS - The pattern has been obvious for the Cedar Rapids RoughRiders.

A win followed by a loss. A win followed by a loss.

It’d been that way since mid-October. Win a game Friday night, lose a game the next night.

Until last week when the Riders beat the Muskegon Lumberjacks twice at ImOn Ice Arena. It was 6-2 Friday night and 5-4 Saturday night.

A sweep against the team with the best record and highest standings points total in the USHL. A sweep that included coming back from a 4-0 hole in the second period Saturday night.

Nice.

“It’s huge for us,” RoughRiders defenseman Hawke Huff said. “We haven’t had that sweep for awhile and hopefully we can keep it going. We had a meeting this morning, and Coach talked about how every point is important. Especially as the season goes on, sweeps are going to mean more and more. We were super happy with that sweep.”

Coach Mark Carlson has been super happy with the play of Huff.

The second-year defenseman is second on the team in plus-minus rating at plus-11, especially impressive because defensemen get more minutes of ice time, and Huff regularly is out there against the opponent’s top lines.

Then there is the increase in offense the 6-foot-3, 200-pounder has brought this season. He had two goals and eight asssists in a combined 56 games for the RoughRiders and Sioux Falls Stampede, who traded him to C.R. last February.

Huff already has surpassed last season’s offensive totals with two goals and 13 assists in 19 games.

“When I was in Sioux Falls, it was kind of tough. I was trying to stay in the lineup and stuff,” Huff said. “Then when I came here, Coach Carlson obviously gave me a huge opportunity. I got more playing time, I got more comfortable. One thing we talked about a lot was just getting up into the play and creating offense when I had the chance.

“Obviously I’m trying to keep my defensive game the same. Adding on offensively is just something I’ve been working on this year.”

Huff said when to join the play, when to pinch into the opponent’s zone is something he still is learning. A lot of film study.

“There’s a time and place for it,” he said. “As a D-man, you’ve got to be responsible for your net first. But, yeah, it’s just feeling the play out. If we have multiple guys in the play and I can join, if there’s room, then go for it. It’s been a lot of fun implementing that into my game.”

“We really liked him when we traded for him last year,” Carlson said. “We thought he was a really good two-way defenseman with great character, size. So we were really happy when we made that trade ... He came in and was kind of finding his way here last year. He played an important role for us, but we believed that he would continue to improve. He had a great assist the other way, just keeps getting better.”

Huff, 19, was born in the state of Washington, moved with his family to Arizona and eventually to the Twin Cities area, where his love of the game of hockey went to another level. He has committed to play college hockey at St. Cloud State.

And Hawke, by the way, is his middle name. His first name actually is Luken, but no one refers to him by that.

“My parents just started calling me Hawke at a young age, so I just went with it,” he said. “All my teachers, all my friends and everything, they just call me Hawke. They’re both pretty cool names, but I wouldn’t mind either. I don’t know, I think it’d be a little weird now to switch it back and have everybody call me Luken.

The RoughRiders are 12-5-0-2 going into their annual home-and-home Thanksgiving week matchup against the Waterloo Black Hawks. Thursday is, of course, the Turkey Day game at Waterloo, with the teams coming back to face each other Saturday night in Cedar Rapids (7:05 p.m. opening faceoff).

Cedar Rapids is tied with Madison for fourth place in the USHL’s Eastern Conference with 26 standings points each. Muskegon (30), Dubuque (29) and Youngstown (28) are in first, second and third, respectively, with the RoughRiders holding at least one game in hand on all of them.

Iowa Heartlanders

File Sunday’s game under the category of “Needed That.”

The Heartlanders beat the Cincinnati Cyclones, 6-3, Sunday afternoon at Xtream Arena in Coralville. They rallied from a 3-0 hole after one period to end a four-game losing streak.

Jack O’Brien had two goals and an assist for Iowa. Defenseman Mike Koster had a goal and two assists.

The Heartlanders are 6-9-1-0 for 13 standings points, which places them in sixth place out of seven teams in the ECHL’s Central Division. They host the Bloomington Bison on Wednesday night at 7 p.m., with a Friday night return trip to Illinois.

Iowa had leading scorer Jaxon Nelson sign a PTO (Player Tryout Contract) last week with the AHL’s Iowa Wild. He had nine goals and eight assists in 14 games for the Heartlanders.

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