Friday, November 25, 2011

Top Three

1.)  Turkey Day Recap- Both the Fort Wayne Komets and the Tulsa Oilers were thankful yesterday as they both earned wins in their Thanksgiving Day games.  The Komets beat the Bloomington Blaze, 3-1, winning for the fourth straight year and improving to 32-14-4 at home on Turkey Day.  The Oilers offense stayed hot beating the Laredo Bucks 6-4.  The Oilers have scored 31 goals in their last six games and are 5-0-1 over that stretch.  The win moves Tulsa into sole possession of first place in the Berry Conference. 
         
2.)  Coaching Milestone- Wichita head coach Kevin McClelland will jump into a pretty rare coaching category on Friday night when he becomes just the 11th coach to coach in 400 CHL games.  The 2007 CHL Coach of the Year has averaged 37 wins during his six seasons in the league serving as the coach for Mississippi, Colorado and now the Thunder.  During his time in the CHL, McClelland has accumulated a record of 221-133-32 (entering this season) and has made the playoffs in five of his six seasons.  This year, he has the Thunder off to one of their better starts in recent seasons sitting with an 8-4-0 record. 

3.)  Killer Bees Buzz Their Way to Arizona- The Rio Grande Valley Killer Bees travel west this weekend to take on the Arizona Sundogs in a pair of games at Tim’s Toyota Center.  The Bees are 2-0 this season against the ‘Dogs but Arizona has won 17 of the 28 all-time meetings between the two clubs.  RGV enters play on Friday night with a three-game win streak but will be playing just their third road game of the season and their first since October 29.  Killer Bee forward Aaron Lee leads the CHL with 11 goals and has two-goal games in each of the Bees last two contests.  Earlier in the season, Lee scored in five straight contests, tied for the longest goal streak in the CHL this season.  Arizona is coming off a strong brief two-game road trip that saw them win in Tulsa and Texas, both in either overtime or a shootout.  Arizona has played in five straight one-goal games and have played in a league-high 11 one-goal games this season (5-3-3).     

Inside the Numbers
3: The current win streak for the Tulsa Oilers in their season series against the Wichita Thunder.  The two rivals play a home-and-home this weekend battling in Tulsa on Friday night and in Wichita on Saturday.  Two of Tulsa’s three victories were by just one goal and in the last meeting, the Oilers defeated Wichita 4-1 on Nov. 19 at the INTRUST Bank Arena.  Michel Beausoleil leads all skaters in the season series with seven points (all assists).  Both teams have been successful with the man advantage with Tulsa scoring seven times in 22 chances (32%) and Wichita finding the back of the net six times in 23 opportunities (26%).  The Oilers are in first place in the Berry Conference leading the Allen Americans by one point and the Thunder by two points.    

On the Fly
-Expansion siblings, Allen (8-2-3) and Missouri (7-4-2), square off on Friday night in the fourth ever meeting between the two clubs and the first since March of 2010.  The clubs both entered the CHL in 2009 with Allen winning two of the three match-ups.  Missouri has lost four straight games overall and Allen has not lost in regulation since Nov. 4 (7-0-1 in their last eight games).
-Tulsa defenseman Jeff Terminesi has been racking the points up lately with two goals and eight assists in his last four games.  He leads all d-men in the CHL with 17 points (3-14=17) on the season.
-Fort Wayne’s Brett Smith extended his point streak top 11 games with his empty-net goal in Thursday’s win over Bloomington.  Smith is one shy of the longest point streak this season set by Allen’s Jason Deitsch (12 games).
-Dayton’s Tim Hartung has goals in each of his last four games and is one game shy of matching the longest goal streak in the league this season (five games).  The Gems are 3-1-2 in their last six games.
-Quad City is coming off a shootout win in Dayton on Wednesday and have won three of their last four games.  The Flock host Fort Wayne and Missouri this weekend.
-Texas rookie goalie, Mark Guggenberger, is still near perfect on the season with a 3-0-1 record and a league-best 2.16 goals against average.
-Evansville is deadly when drawing first blood this season carrying a 7-0-1 record when scoring first.  Only Texas is without a regulation loss when scoring first (6-0-0).