Iowa Heartlanders hooked by Toledo Walleye again, though they get a standings point

CORALVILLE - The Toledo Walleye are up here right now. Imagine a hand being held high at eye level.

Everyone else is down here right now. Imagine that hand being lowered to about the chest.

The best team in the ECHL’s Central Division took it to the Iowa Heartlanders this weekend at Xtream Arena, winning three straight games. That included 5-4 in overtime Sunday.

Chase Gresock’s wraparound goal with 55.6 seconds remaining in the seven-minute 3-on-3 extra period made it a clean sweep for the men of fish. Toledo is 16-4-1-2 for 35 standings points, which leads the division by nine points.

Everyone else is bunched in a six pack that is separated by just five standings points. The top four teams in the division get a playoff berth at season’s end, and there’s a lot of hockey to go.

That Iowa is right there with everyone else and has the time to make head way on the early front runner is a good thing.

“That’s a good hockey team over there. We’re a good hockey team,” said Heartlanders Coach Derek Damon. “Obviously we were fighting it a little bit this weekend. But there are some positives you can take out of it. The way that we played today is the way that we have to play. It’s simple, hard, and that’s effective in this league.”

Damon wanted more of a physical presence from his club here and got it, though it did lead to four first-period penalties and a 1-0 deficit because of it. Toledo led 2-0 early in the second, but the Heartlanders went on to score the next four goals.

Louis Boudon had two of them, Maxim Cajkovic and Pavel Novak the others. Novak’s snipe off a 2-on-1 rush made it a 4-2 game 5:22 into the third period.

But Toledo didn’t go away, scoring with just under 11 minutes left and then again with 4:23 to go to tie it, a goal that went in off the skate of a Heartlanders play in front. Unfortunate.

“After getting that fourth goal, we should lock it down at that point in the game,” said Boudon. “Unfortunately they got a couple of lucky bounces. But I think we’ve got to find a way to finish those games. A two-goal lead at home, we’ve got to win those games.”

Iowa is 10-11-3-1 for 24 standings points and continues a homestand with three games this week/weekend against Fort Wayne. The team survived an absolutely brutal three-week road trip that consisted of 10 games: three three-in-three weekends and a stretch where it played four games in five nights in three different cities.

“It was hard, I’m not going to lie,” Boudon said. “You’re home for a day or two, and then you go right back on the road. You spend four days on the road, you’re on a sleeper bus. I think we managed it pretty well. But 10 games eventually is going to be hard on the body. It’s nice to be here. A little different feel.”

“The way we played physically from start to finish today was how we have to play,” Damon said. “I said to the guys that’s the standard we have to play at. They played hard. Am I disappointed we gave up the two-goal lead in the third period? Yes. You can’t let up for one second. But at the end of the day, we got a point out of it. You take it for what it is and move on.”

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