HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — Twelve in a row.
The Peoria Rivermen did it again, extending the longest current win streak in professional hockey Saturday with an impressive defensive effort against the SPHL’s top offensive team.
The Rivermen beat the Huntsville Havoc, 1-0, before 6,273 at Propst Arena as veteran goaltender Nick Latinovich and league goalscoring leader Mike McChesney netted the game’s only goal on a freak ricochet.
“Twelve straight wins,” said McChesney, who notched his league-best 10th game-winner. “That’s pretty cool. We’re just a team with a lot of guys who want to win. We’re playing the right way, playing with momentum and will and we just want to keep this going.”
Peoria’s win streak now is the second longest in SPHL history. Peoria is chasing its own record — 14 in a row is the league mark, set by the Rivermen, from Dec. 18, 2015 through Jan. 29, 2016.
The Rivermen are on an 18-0-1 run, the second longest streak without a regulation loss in SPHL history. The record is 22, set by Pensacola in the 2013-14 season (19-0-3).
McChesney was in the right place during a Rivermen power play at 9:54 of the third period. Peoria wound the puck around the boards from the blueline, and it climbed up on top of the ledge on the boards, rolled around the zone to the back of the net, then hit a seam in the protective glass.
The puck shot out through goaltender Brian Wilson as he anticipated cutting it’s path off behind the net. Instead, it went right between the goaltender’s pads, headed out toward the left post, and right to McChesney, who parked it into an empty net for the winner.
“My pupils got so wide when I saw that puck ricochet like that, you couldn’t see the color of my eyes,” McChesney joked. “We got great goaltending and great defense and shut down a team that leads the league in goals, and that’s what we intended to do when we came down here.”
Latinovich notched his fourth shutout of the season, and now is 15-4-0 with a 1.93 goals-against and .931 saves rate.
The Rivermen move on to Evansville for a game Wednesday as part of an eight-game, 25-day road trip.
They have not lost in regulation in 50 days. That, despite three top players on call-ups to the ECHL and a roster patched up with six players who weren’t with the team a dozen games ago.
Peoria now has a 10-point lead atop the SPHL standings, with Pensacola following and Huntsville in third, 11 points back.
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: ‘Pupils got so wide’: How a weird bounce helped Peoria Rivermen win 12th straight game
Reporting by Dave Eminian, Peoria Journal Star / Journal Star
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