The Peppers second road trip in Mountain Division play will also feature a second three-game series as they travel to Idaho Falls to take on the Spud Kings in their second head-to-head meeting of the season.
WHEN: Thursday, October 22nd, Friday, October 23rd, and Saturday, October 24th
All games will be played at the Mountain America Center in Idaho Falls, ID and puck drop is scheduled for 7:05 PM MDT for all three games.
FOLLOW ALONG: All Peppers games are aired on www.nahltv.com – be sure to select the “Away” feed to hear Peppers play-by-play broadcaster Marty Wakelyn.
LAST TIME OUT: Goaltender Max Kogler pitched a 20-save shutout and Blake Schultz’s third goal of the season were enough to help the Peppers grab a 2-0 victory over the Grand Junction River Hawks to salvage a series split with a win last Saturday night at the Pueblo Ice Arena and Events Center. The first period was marred by two fights and two major penalties assessed to the Peppers. Winger Blake Graff was sent to the showers after a kneeing penalty and tilt with River Hawks defenseman Melwin Last with 13:31 left in the first period. After one successful major penalty kill, the Peppers were right back to it when a roughing major and game misconduct was given to Boone Kindseth after a crunching hit on Owen Turner in the left wing corner with 7:50 remaining in the period. The penalty kill provided carryover momentum into the second period as Schultz lit the lamp with a bank shot off the leg of Grand Junction goaltender Preston Lewis with 16:31 left in the middle stanza. Kogler made eight of his 20 saves in the third period to protect the one goal advantage until the first Pueblo empty net bid hit the post and Nolan Warner’s 200-foot effort punched the puck into the cage with 1:45 remaining in regulation to ice the 2-0 win for Pueblo.
WARNER WARNING IN EFFECT: Rookie Nolan Warner bagged a goal in the season opener against Kenai River and then promptly had to miss over two weeks with an injury. In his return to the lineup two weeks ago, he redirected a point shot for his second goal of the season and has points in four of his five appearances in his rookie season for the Peppers. The Victoria, MN native bagged an empty net goal in last Saturday’s 2-0 win and is currently on a 0.8/point per game pace as part of the lineup.
THIRD STAR FOR KOGLER: Goaltender Max Kogler couldn’t have asked for a better rebound performance – six days after he was pulled after allowing two goals on two shots, he followed up with a 20-save effort en route to his second career shutout. The second-year NAHL netminder is off to a strong start in his sophomore season with a 2-1-3-0 record, 2.67 GAA, and .894 save percentage across his first six starts. For his efforts last weekend, Kogler earned the Mountain Division 3rd Star of the Week – the third time a Pepper has been named a second or third star.
PROWESS ON THE PENALTY KILL: The Pepper penalty kill spent nearly eighteen minutes on the ice last Saturday and didn’t allow a goal across six River Hawk power play attempts to help improve their percentage to 88.4% (38/43) on the season and was the sixth time in ten games that the Peppers had not allowed a power play goal. Not only did the Peppers not take many penalties the last time they matched up with Idaho Falls, they didn’t get burned by them either – going 4-for-4 on the penalty kill across their two previous meetings with the Spud Kings.
SCOUTING IDAHO FALLS: The previously last place Spud Kings finally awoke with a vengeance last weekend – blowing 16 goals past Mountain Division leaders Billings in two games, skating away with 9-2 and 7-2 victories. The two wins catapulted the Spud Kings into fourth place, earned forward Joshua Sardo the Mountain Division Star of the Week honors with eight points (3-5-8), and morphed an offense averaging 2.13 goals per game (17 goals in their first eight games) to one averaging 3.30 (33 goals in their first ten games). Newly acquired Nicholas Arrington has slotted in nicely for the Spud Kings since his arrival from Odessa – bagging three assists in his first two games – to join a Spud Kings offense that now features ten different multi-goal scorers. Goaltender Dylan McFayden remains the primary starter in net for the Spud Kings – grabbing a 4-2-0-1 record with a 2.13 GAA and .937 save percentage in his seven starts.
HEAD-TO-HEAD SERIES: The team’s split the first two meetings in Pueblo three weeks ago – the Spud Kings grabbed an 2-1 overtime win on October 2nd and the Peppers countered with a 4-1 win the following night. Overall, the Peppers have a 1-0-1-0 record thus far in the teams’ 10-game regular season head-to-head series. The ten games are the fewest for Pueblo against any Mountain Division opponent – the divisional schedule features fifteen games with Grand Junction, fourteen with Billings, and thirteen with Ogden. The Peppers lead the all-time regular season series over Idaho Falls with a 24-13-4-1 record.