Gameday Preview: Stars at Rockford IceHogs

Texas Stars
4-2-0-0, 8 pts
#5 West Division
atRockford IceHogs
4-3-0-0, 8 pts
#6 West Division
October 27th at 6:35 PM
Rockford MetroCentre, Rockford, IL

Texas and Rockford meet this evening for the first time this season. Texas last visited the MetroCentre last April for Game 4 of the openign round of the West Division Playoffs. Texas swept the IceHogs in four games, with Brent Krahn starting all four and performing superbly. Texas never trailed in the series. Surely, that is not forgotten by the returning members of the IceHogs squad.

The IceHogs are led on offense by Brian Connelly (0-7-7) who is in his third year with Rockford. Other leading scorers include Rob Kilnkhammer (3-3-6) and Ryan Potulny (2-3-5). Other IceHogs of note include former Star Ivan Vishnevskiy, who is 1-4-5 but has a minus-3 rating on the young season. Rockford's top four scorers from last year have all found different addresses for the new season and not all of them are in the system anymore. Mark Cullen (Rochester), Bracken Kearns (San Antonio) and Kyle Greentree (Hershey) left town while Jack Skille now plies his trade in Chicago.

Corey Crawford is now backing up former Dallas Star Marty Turco for the Blackhawks. This leaves Hannu Toivonen and newcomer Alec Richards to man the crease for Rockford. Toivonen is 1-2-0 with a bloated 4.39 GAA and .831 SV%. Toivonen is 2-1-1 against Texas with all of his ice aginst the Stars coming during his time with the Rivermen. Alec Richards has been the more steady hand with a 3-1 record, 2.94 GAA and .888 SV%.

Rookie Kyle Hagel leads all players in major penalties (5) in the AHL. Rockford has the second worst penalty killing percentage in the AHL at 68.8%.

Brent Krahn will start for Texas tonight.

Stars injury/call up report:
Sawada, McCulloch (injury)

Website: icehogs.com
Blog (unofficial): Rockford IceHogs Fan Blog
Twitter: @goicehogs

Comments