PEORIA — The Peoria Rivermen have the most prolific goalscorer in professional hockey right now.
Khaden Henry has scored 14 goals in 14 games since he joined the Rivermen in December, coming up from Biloxi in the low-A FPHL.
He has 29 goals in 31 games combined with the two teams this season. That’s a goals-per-game rate of .935, the highest in professional hockey among players with at least 25 goals from low-A FPHL to high-A SPHL, class-AA ECHL, class-AAA AHL and the NHL.
“I believe in my game and what I can do,” said Henry, 23. “I wasn’t expecting a goal a game, no, but a point per game is what I wanted to produce. (Rivermen head coach) Jean-Guy Trudel really instilled in me that I’m a shooter, that I can score.
“I’m my own worst critic, it’s just the way my mind works. I know I’ve got 14 goals in 14 games here. But I believe I should have 17, 18, 19 goals. So I’m not satisfied with any of it.”
The soft-spoken left wing has been a one-man highlight film, fitting, in that he had to send video highlights of himself to SPHL teams as he desperately tried to find a place to play.
Think of it as a Tinder-type campaign for hockey. And the Rivermen swiped right.
“My mom, Laura, made the highlights video tape for me,” said Henry of his mother, a former sign language interpreter. “I sent her clips and she put it all together. Then I sent it out to the top SPHL teams. I wanted to move up, and I was looking for a way to be seen. I got some calls from teams saying they’d look at me in a week or two, blah, blah, blah.
“But Peoria was ready to bring me in right away. Everyone knows this is the best place to play, best coach in the league, multiple championships. Jean-Guy was the first one to give me a shot.”
What a way to start
The Rivermen were playing poorly and had slipped to sixth place in the SPHL after a home loss on Dec. 12. Henry had just arrived from the FPHL and jumped in the lineup that night for his debut.
The next night, his second game, he notched a hat trick and navigated through a moment that became the crossroads of the Rivermen season.
Trudel took a calculated risk and removed all the leadership letters from players’ jerseys before that Dec. 13 game. There was no captain. No assistants. They played that way for several games.
“I walked into that right away when I got here,” Henry said, grinning. “I was thinking, ‘Wow, what’s going on here?’ It was pretty intense and I loved the way our guys competed and responded. It helped me know I found the right place.”
It proved to be the start of two amazing runs. Henry’s goalscoring and a Peoria team that has not lost a game in regulation since Henry arrived and those jersey letters departed. The letters have since been earned back. And the team is on an 18-0-1 run and won 12 straight.
It’s the third-longest win streak in the Rivermen 44-year history, and second-longest in SPHL history. They long ago left sixth place behind and now sit atop the league with a 10-point lead.
“I didn’t just find Henry, he reached out to me,” Trudel said, laughing from his couch in the coaches office before a late January game. “I watched his video and I thought, ‘He looks pretty darn good on video.’ But you never know if it’s going to transfer onto the ice. We needed him. He came here and he was my spark, he’s what our team was needing. Every time he has the puck he thinks he’s going to score.”
Henry’s 14 goals have come on 63 shots, a .222 shooting percentage that is second in the SPHL. His +13 rating is second-best in the league as well.
He has four multi-goal games, and he had a five-game goalscoring streak active before he was knocked out of a game at Quad City with a concussion on a head-shot from an opponent.
Henry is due to come back to the lineup this week.
“The thing about Khaden is, I think he’s a late-bloomer,” Trudel said. “He played one semester of college hockey and some junior hockey and he was good but not great. I don’t think he had time to grow mentally and physically to be ready for the pro game.
“I saw him on tape last year in the FPHL and he was OK, but nothing like this. He’s so much better, made so much progress.
“It was important for our team to see a player like him. Instead of being perfect in every way, we had all these opportunities and just wouldn’t shoot. Then Khaden shows up and shoots eight times a night, and when you shoot eight times in a game you’re probably gonna score a goal.”
‘Way more fun’
Khaden Henry is a 5-foot-10, 181-pound winger from Markham, Ontario. He lives in Peterborough, Ontario, which is also home of the Evans family, which saw Rivermen Hall of Fame charter member Doug Evans and his brothers, Mark and Kevin, play for the Rivermen more than 30 years ago.
Henry’s own journey began when his parents, Richard and Laura, had him follow his older brother, Mekiah, into house league hockey.
But he was a striker when he was 3 years old, as soccer was initially his game.
“But when I was 6, my mom’s friend told her I should start playing hockey,” Henry said. “She put me on a house league team. I played hockey and soccer until I was 16. Then I had to make a choice. The soccer team was an academy team and I had to train and practice and play year-round. They told me I had to choose a sport.
“Well, I chose hockey. It was way more fun. I love it more. And I was a lot better at it.”
He grew up to play junior hockey for Markham, Aurora and Trenton in the Ontario Junior Hockey League, with Kemptville in the CCHL and spent 13 games with NCAA Div.-III Morrisville State.
He turned pro two years ago and played for Binghamton and Monroe in the FPHL, then started his second pro season last fall at Biloxi in the FPHL.
Like all players, he has a dream. “Mine is pretty simple, really,” Henry said. “I just want to go as far as I can in the game. Wherever that may be, I’m gonna work my hardest and see where it takes me.”
Over the years and in present time, his favorite NHL players to watch were Pavel Datsyuk, Auston Matthews and now Connor McDavid.
“I try to take different parts from different players,” Henry said. “I love the way Datsyuk was able to steal a puck from people and have the best hands in the league, break ankles. I just love that. I love the way (Toronto Maple Leafs captain) Matthews shoots, his deception. I try to shoot like him. And McDavid, the fastest player in the world. So something from all of them.”
A hockey family on a roll
The Peoria Rivermen are on an eight-game, 25-day road trip against opponents in Illinois, Indiana, Alabama and Virginia.
They will have not lost a game in regulation in 54 days by the time they take the ice Wednesday at Evansville. They are chasing their own SPHL record win streak of 14 games.
“People ask how we can win 12 in a row, or go 18-0-1,” Henry said. “The feeling in our room is all about winning and competing and holding each other accountable. We’ve created a family, we’re being good teammates and the feeling in here is just amazing.
“There have been a lot of ups and downs to hockey for me, times when I loved it and times when I hated it. But I’ve never even considered giving up the game.
“The last three years I’ve been the most in love with the game I’ve ever been.”
Dave Eminian is the Journal Star sports columnist, and covers Bradley men’s basketball, the Rivermen and Chiefs. He writes the Cleve In The Eve sports column for pjstar.com. He can be reached at 686-3206 or deminian@pjstar.com. Follow him on X.com @icetimecleve.
This article originally appeared on Journal Star: How Peoria Rivermen ended up with most prolific scorer in pro hockey
Reporting by Dave Eminian, Peoria Journal Star / Journal Star
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