Corridor Cross Checks: Iowa Heartlanders prepare for 2024-25 ECHL season

CORALVILLE — Change.

That’s what Iowa Heartlanders head coach Derek Damon has sought for his ECHL team as the 2024-25 season approaches.

The Heartlanders have two preseason games this weekend at Fort Wayne, then host the Komets to begin the regular season Friday, Oct. 18, and Saturday, Oct. 19, at Xtream Arena. Opening faceoffs are 7 p.m. the 18th and 6 p.m. the 19th, after a pregame tailgate party from 3 to 5 p.m. outside the arena.

Iowa finished last in the Western Conference last season with a 27-37-6-2 record. To turn things around, Damon assembled a roster this summer that isn’t necessarily the most purely talented in the league but one that is high on intangibles.

Important intangibles.

“We got culture guys, the character guys that we wanted,” Damon said. “I completely cleaned house, kept the guys that we want to build around. Guys with high character, high work ethics. I sat behind that bench last year and (we) got outworked too many times. We won’t be as skilled as other teams, but we are not going to get outworked. I can promise you that.”

Right now there are 10 players around who spent time last season with the Heartlanders: defensemen Chris Lipe, Jules Boscq and Louka Henault, and forwards Will Calverley, Pavel Novak, Jonny Sorenson, Adam Goodsir, Dakota Raabe, Yuki Miura and Nico Blachman.

All are ECHL contracted except for Novak, who is on a National Hockey League deal with the parent Minnesota Wild. Forward Matthew Sop, defenseman Will Zmolek (a former Cedar Rapids RoughRider) and goaltender Kyle McClellan are on American Hockey League contracts with the Iowa Wild in Des Moines.

Damon said he expects a forward, a defenseman and promising rookie goaltender William Rousseau to be assigned to the Heartlanders from the Iowa Wild when they finalize an opening-night roster sometime this week.

“I like Rousseau a lot,” Damon said. “And McClellan won the Richter Award last year for the best goalie in college hockey (at Wisconsin). He’s a great kid.”

The coach said he has made a tactical change in the way his team will play this season as well, specifically in its own zone. He wants to rely heavily on a defense corps that has size.

“Obviously we are going to rely on our American (Hockey) League guys to set the standard of skill and produce,” he said. “But we’re going to win one-goal games. That’s going to be our motto. We want to play hard, we want to be relentless all over the ice. Our forecheck is hard and aggressive, our neutral zone is hard and aggressive, and our D zone ... at times last year instead of killing the play, we let teams come in (to Iowa’s zone) and set up, and they’d be in our zone for a minute.

“I completely changed our D zone (coverage) this summer. That is what we are spending a lot of time on right now in practice. Hopefully that cuts down on the workload for our guys, the way we’re playing our D zone. But we’ve got to be in really good shape, so that’s something, too, that we are preaching.”

By the way, the three Heartlanders players (now ex-Heartlanders players) arrested late last season in early April in an alcohol-related incident in downtown Iowa City all have had their respective cases resolved within the last month.

Liam Coughlin pled guilty to public intoxication and had misdemeanor charges of trespassing and interference with official acts dismissed. Nick Campoli had a trespassing charge dismissed and an interference with official acts charge deferred.

Kevin McKernan pled guilty to an interference with official acts charge and had a public intoxication charge and a serious-misdemeanor charge of assault on persons in certain occupations dismissed.

Cedar Rapids RoughRiders split weekend series with Youngstown

The Cedar Rapids RoughRiders were this close to having a great weekend.

They beat Youngstown at home this past Friday night, 4-2, as Amine Hajibi had a goal and two assists. Loa Milfors added a goal and assist.

Cedar Rapids led Saturday’s game against the Phantoms, 2-0, with under eight minutes to go, only to see Youngstown score three times to steal a 3-2 win. Ryan Rucinski’s game-winning goal with 2:18 left came on the power play, after C.R. took a too-many-men-on-the-ice penalty.

Daniel Astapovich and Hans-Martin Ulvebne had the RoughRiders goals.

Cedar Rapids is 3-2 in the early going and heads to the road this weekend for games Friday night at Fargo and Saturday night at Sioux Falls. Hajibi is second in the United States Hockey League with seven points (three goals, four assists) in five games.

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