10 Things You Need to Know About the American Hockey League This Week
AHL Standings || Scores and Schedules || League Leaders
1. The last two teams fell from the ranks of the unbeaten last weekend, as the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins and Springfield Falcons both suffered shootout losses on the road Friday night (the Penguins in Binghamton, the Falcons in Providence).
For good measure, both teams returned home on Saturday and were handed their first regulation losses, with Wilkes-Barre falling to Norfolk and Springfield being beaten by Worcester.
That leaves the Milwaukee Admirals as the only AHL team without a regulation loss in 2013-14. The Admirals, 3-0-2-0, host Texas on Wednesday and Rockford on Friday before visiting Iowa on Sunday.
2. More than 20 years after the New Jersey Devils moved their affiliate out of the Memorial Auditorium following the 1992-93 season, AHL hockey returned to Utica last Wednesday when the Comets made their home debut against New Jersey’s current affiliate, the Albany Devils.
Albany spoiled the festivities with a 4-1 win at the sold-out Aud; Utica (0-5-0-1) finally got in the points column on Friday with a 2-1 shootout loss to Syracuse.
3. Daniil Tarasov scored all three Worcester goals in the Sharks’ 3-1 win in Springfield on Saturday, ending a nearly four-year-long drought. Tarasov became the first Worcester skater to record a hat trick since Dan DaSilva on Feb. 14, 2010 — 264 games earlier.
In between DaSilva’s hat trick and Tarasov’s effort on Saturday, non-Sharks players had recorded 192 regular-season hat tricks.
4. CCM/AHL Player of the Week John Muse posted shutouts in each of his first two AHL appearances of the season, backstopping Charlotte to 5-0 wins at Grand Rapids on Friday and Chicago on Sunday. Muse totaled 57 saves in the two victories.
Muse and Allen York shared the Checkers’ goaltending duties over the weekend with Justin Peters and Mike Murphy both on recall to the parent Carolina Hurricanes, and the team added more depth on Saturday by signing Rick DiPietro to a tryout contract.
5. Texas’s Travis Morin (8-10-18) and Albany’s Scott Timmins (5-5-10) have both found the scoresheet in each of their teams’ first eight games this season. Morin, who leads the AHL in goals (8, tied), assists (10) and points (18), was recalled by Dallas on Sunday.
6. Albany’s Harri Pesonen was awarded two penalty shots in the Devils’ game vs. Hartford on Friday night. Complete AHL records of penalty shots only go back to 1992, but in that time Albany is just the fifth team to have two attempts in one game, and Pesonen is the first player to take both.
Pesonen’s penalty shots came against two different Hartford goalies — Jeff Malcolm and Scott Stajcer — and both were denied.
7. When Linus Omark scored four times for Oklahoma City in Friday night’s 5-4 win at San Antonio, he became the fourth Baron in the team’s brief history to score at least four goals in one contest — and the third to do it against the Rampage.
Omark himself scored five times vs. Toronto on Nov. 7, 2010, and Colin McDonald (Apr. 8, 2011) and Jordan Eberle (Dec. 15, 2012) both scored four goals vs. San Antonio.
Omark’s effort was the seventh four-goal game allowed by the Rampage, the most of any AHL club since 1996.
8. Chicago forward Keith Aucoin moved up one more rung on the AHL’s scoring leaderboard last week. With a goal and an assist at Iowa on Thursday, Aucoin tied and then passed AHL Hall of Famer Mitch Lamoureux for ninth place on the career scoring list with 817 points.
Next on the list: Jimmy Anderson (821) and Harry Pidhirny (829).
9. There have been 37 shorthanded goals scored in 116 games this season, on pace for 363 shorties for the season. Last year, 254 shorthanded goals were scored league-wide.
The Binghamton Senators, who scored a league-best 19 SHG in 2012-13, lead the way again with four so far this year. Norfolk, Syracuse, Hamilton, Wilkes-Barre/Scranton and Springfield have scored three shorthanded goals apiece.
Bridgeport and Adirondack have both allowed more goals than they have scored while on the power play this season. The Sound Tigers (3-for-43) have a league-high five shorthanded goals against, while the Phantoms (3-for-35) have given up four shorthanded markers.
10. Congratulations to AHL call-ups Freddie Hamilton, Xavier Ouellet, Tyler Pitlick, Patrick Holland, Chris Breen, Cam Talbot, Kevin Connauton, Darren Archibald, Jayson Megna, Magnus Hellberg and Michael Chaput, who all made their NHL debuts last week. The 2013-14 total now stands at 37.
