Corridor Cross Checks: Iowa Heartlanders on a win streak

CORALVILLE - There are plenty of ups and downs in any hockey season. You play so many games, and at the ECHL level, you have so much player movement.

Fair to say right now is an up for the Iowa Heartlanders.

The club swept this past weekend, beating Kalamazoo, 4-3, Friday night and the Indy Fuel, 4-1, Saturday night and 2-1 Sunday afternoon. Iowa has won five straight games.

“We’ve been battling the last month or so injuries and call-ups,” said Heartlanders Coach Derek Damon. “It’s been hard with the travel, we spent three weeks on the road. But I would say (only) one out of the last 12 games or so we had a stinker, and it came last Friday at Wichita. We just weren’t playing our game.

“I let the guys know (the next day) that for us to have success, we have to play to our identity, play our game. That night we were definitely back at it and we got that win ...”

And four others have followed. As Damon mentioned, Iowa had a brutal road stretch of that saw it play 12 of 13 games on the road: going from Cincinnati to Bloomington, Ill., to Toledo, Ohio, to Wheeling, W.V., to Wichita, Kan.

It is in the middle of a homestand at Xtream Arena now, with the first-year Tahoe Knight Monsters coming in for games this coming Friday night (7 p.m.), Saturday night (6 p.m.) and Sunday afternoon (3 p.m.).

“I think we’re just playing more as a team as a whole,” said rookie winger Ryan Miotto, who leads the Heartlanders with 12 goals. “When we are down in games, we get away from our systems and not doing the right things. But when we’re going, we are a hard team to beat.”

Iowa is in second place in the ECHL’s Central Division with a record of 20-11-3-1 and 44 standings points. Toledo is in first place (52 points), Fort Wayne in third (43) and Bloomington fourth (33).

The top four teams in the division make the Kelly Cup playoffs. A long way to go before that, but this is without question the best of the four Heartlanders teams.

It plays hard, direct hockey, has had good goaltending and has won close games. Iowa’s goal differential is just plus-five (99 goals for and 94 against).

“This weekend it was the same thing. A big divisional weekend against Kalamazoo and Indy. They are all hard games,” Damon said. “Friday night, we played great, the next two periods weren’t great and I told the guys that you can’t expect to play 20 minutes and win. (Saturday) night was a great effort and (Sunday) again.”

The Heartlanders recently received top forwards Matthew Sop and Gavin Hain back from the AHL’s Iowa Wild. They have kind of been on that AHL-ECHL shuttle all season.

Goaltender William Rousseau, who has been great as a rookie pro, recently signed an AHL deal with the Iowa Wild but is expected to return to the Heartlanders sooner than later.

Cedar Rapids RoughRiders

Hockey is an unexplainable game sometimes. Just look at the RoughRiders’ week as an example.

Cedar Rapids was blasted at home Friday night by Sioux City, 8-1, only to come back the next night at home and blank Waterloo, 1-0, in overtime.

The extra weird thing about the Sioux City game was that Robert Chlan opened the scoring for the RoughRiders, just 2:41 in. The Musketeers got the next eight goals, two in the first period, four in the second and two more in the third.

C.R. actually outshot Sioux City in the game, 27-25.

A.J. Reyelts picked up his first United States Hockey League shutout in Saturday’s game, making 30 saves. Defenseman Maxon Vig won it with just 4.9 seconds to go in OT, rushing down left wing, cutting to the net and beating Waterloo goaltender Calvin Vachon.

The RoughRiders are 14-16-1-1 for 30 standings points, which places them in sixth place in the USHL’s Eastern Conference, five points back of fifth-place Green Bay and six in front of seventh-place Chicago. They play a pair of home games this coming weekend at ImOn Ice Arena: Friday night against Green Bay and Saturday night against Madison, both games beginning at 7:05.

Comments: (319)-398-8258, jeff.johnson@thegazette.com