Iowa Heartlanders prepared for their playoff hockey debut

CORALVILLE - One franchise is playing the first playoff hockey game in its history. For the other, playoff games are just assumed.

The Iowa Heartlanders are the former here. They qualified for the ECHL postseason for the first time in their four years of existence.

The latter are the Fort Wayne Komets. They have amassed 10 championships in various leagues in their long history, including the ECHL’s Kelly Cup in 2021.

The teams begin their best-of-7 Central Division semifinal series Friday night (6:35 p.m.) at Fort Wayne. Game 2 is Saturday night, then the series shifts to the Corridor for Monday night’s Game 3 and Tuesday night’s Game 4.

“The energy this morning was great,” Heartlanders defenseman Andrew McLean said, after a Monday practice at Xtream Arena. “We came in, everyone was ready to go, a lot of people were here earlier than normal. They know how important the next week is. They know that we’ve never done this before, but we can make a run at it. As long as we stay positive, help each other out, be dialed in and ready to go.”

Iowa finished the regular season in third place in the Central with a 36-25-7-4 record and 83 standings points. Fort Wayne finished second with a 41-22-7-2 record and 91 points.

Though in the same division, the clubs played only five times in the regular season: two games early at Indiana and three late at Iowa. The Heartlanders went 2-2-1.

“They’re a very good hockey club. They have 90-plus points for a reason,” said Heartlanders Coach Derek Damon. “They’ve got good goaltending, they’ve got good-sized D on the back end, they have some dynamic forwards that can change the game in a shift, and they’re well coached.

“So it’s going to take our very best to beat these guys.”

Forward Jack Dugan leads Fort Wayne offensively with 23 goals and 53 points in 70 games. Brett Brochu and Connor Ungar have split time in net.

T.J. Walsh, a former Cedar Rapids RoughRiders player, led Iowa in the regular season with 43 points (18 goals, 25 assists) in 66 games. Kyle McClellan and William Rousseau were pretty evenly split in games played in the goaltending department.

Forward Will Calverley was part of a Florida Everblades team that won the Kelly Cup in 2023.

“You’ve kind of got to experience the playoffs yourself,” Calverley said. “At the same time, I think I can just kind of help them understand that mistakes are going to happen. You can’t let your emotions get too high. You have to find that even line of nerves, excitement and just kind of let it ride.”

“We’re a forechecking team, we have a lot of similar (type) players,” Damon said. “When we built this roster, we built it for a couple of different reasons. Number one, to change the culture here. But, two, we were building a team that was essentially built for the playoffs, the way we play the game. Because in the playoffs, time and space is so valuable, there’s not a lot of it.

“Those seam passes are not there, and it’s tight checking. And we’ve played that way all year long. We’re built for this time of year.”

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