AGD: Ride the Heat Wave

Time: 8:00pm

Location: Abbotsford AESC

Broadcast: abbotsfordheat.com, teamradio.ca

The Abbotsford Heat remained one of the hottest teams in the AHL yesterday by beating the Lake Erie Monsters 3-0. The score featured two empty net goals from Baertschi and Laing, but the home club was full value for the win nonetheless outshooting their opponents 32-18 through two periods (39-29 overall). Apparently the contest would have been a laugher if Abby had finished a few of their 10-bell chances prior to the third period.

TJ Brodie assisted on the only non-empty netter of the night, pushing his season total to nine points in just 13 games. He also lead the team in shots on net with six, so not a bad outing for the youngster. Brodie has rapidly developed from a decent rookie with some holes in his game to the anchor on the Heat’s back-end in the space of one season. People are rightfully excited about Sven Baertschi and Johnny Gaudreau, but Brodie is a quality prospect in his own right (and far and away the best prospect blueliner in the org currently).

As for the team overall, what more can be said? They’re in one of those pahses where they just can’t lose. The goaltending has been supreb, the speical teams are excellent and last night they added "grossly outshooting the opposition" to the resume. Good stuff.

Aliu, Bouma and Nemisz are down for the count. Max Reinhart sat out last night with an "illness" although it seems Ward also thinks the kid could benefit from seeing some games from the pressbox. He may or may not make his way back into the line-up tonight.

Looks like Irving will get a chance at his third start this evening. The former first rounder is fighting crowded creases everywhere he looks in the Flames organization and it’s going to become tougher and tougher for him to stake his claim unless he starts putting together some pretty special performances.

Roman Roman Horak has come back down to earth a bit lately, which was to be expected. On the other hand, Ben Street continues put up nice numbers, with two assists, +3 and five more shots on net last night. He now has 11 points and 46 shots on net

The Monsters are near the top of the Western Conference, but they had a pretty lackluster outing in Abbotsford yesterday. You can expect them to be significantly improved tonight.

Rookie starter Calvin Pickard will likely be back in net since Aittokallio played lat night.

With the win last night, the Heat jumped to first overall in the Western Conference. The only thing you can do during a run like this is hope it continues for as long as possible.