Over the weekend, the Rockford IceHogs began a four-game homestand with action against the Milwaukee Admirals on Saturday night and a Sunday night game against the San Antonio Rampage. After a shutout loss against the Admirals, the IceHogs rebounded with an overtime win over the Rampage to split the weekend slate.
Rockford IceHogs Split Weekend Action
The IceHogs have been in a funk as of late. Coming into the weekend, Rockford had a 1-4-2 record over their last seven games to end the month of November. Over that span, they averaged 1.5 goals per game while allowing 3.3 goals per game. Not a recipe for winning much of anything.
While goaltending will get the finger pointed at it for most teams on a 1-4-2 stretch of play, that is not the case for the IceHogs this season. Outside of a seven-goal game against the Chicago Wolves on Nov. 23, the IceHogs held opponents to three or fewer goals in five of the six other games to end November.
Anton Forsberg makes a save against the Milwaukee Admirals. (Courtesy: Rockford IceHogs)
Looking to build on their 3-2 win over the Wolves on Nov. 30 to end the month, the IceHogs hosted their annual “Teddy Toss” night on Saturday against the Milwaukee Admirals.
[Here is where we would put the Teddy Toss highlight video]
Unfortunately, the IceHogs woes from November crept into December as the Admirals shutout Rockford 3-0 on Saturday, keeping the Teddy Bears in the stands and sending fans home with very sad faces. (Not really, they tossed 3,373 bears onto the ice during the 2nd intermission.) The loss was their sixth in-a-row at home, tying a franchise-long home winless streak.
In net, Anton Forsberg made 19 saves on 21 shots faced, but saw his record this season fall to 4-3-0 with a 2.70 GAA and a 0.901 save-percentage.
Rockford was in desperate need for offense come Sunday. After a scoreless first period, the IceHogs jumped on the board first with a goal from Jacob Nilsson. After two goals from San Antonio to make it a 2-1 game in the 3rd period, Graham Knott snapped a 19-game goal-less streak with his second goal of the season. Making it a 2-2 game, the IceHogs forced overtime and with just over a minute left in the 3-on-3 overtime period, Dylan Sikura would tip-in the game-winning goal for the 3-2 win. Nilsson gave Sikura the setup pass for Dylan’s seventh goal of the year.
Highlights đ„: Dylan Sikura grabs the OT winner in a thrilling 3-2 victory over the San Antonio @sarampage pic.twitter.com/DxpZ0JlJOf
— Rockford IceHogs (@goicehogs) December 3, 2018
After going the last ten games with just two points, Nilsson finds himself with three points over his last three games. For Sikura, he has tallied six points over the last ten games for Rockford and leads the team in points with 16 (7 G, 9 A) in 24 games this season.
Also of note from Sunday’s IceHogs win, goaltender Kevin Lankinen earned his first AHL victory of his career. Making 36 saves on 38 shots faced, Lankinen improved his AHL record to 1-2-1 with a 2.69 GAA and a 0.889 save-percentage.
Is It Time For Dylan Sikura In Chicago?
To say that the Chicago Blackhawks have deficiencies on their current roster would be an understatement. Since the firing of Joel Quenneville and promotion of Jeremy Colliton, the Blackhawks have lost 15 of their 18 games with a 3-12-3 record. Chicago ranks in the bottom third of the NHL (21st) in goals per game with 2.75, and second from the bottom of the league (30th) in goals allowed per game at 3.68. Only the Ottawa Senators are below Chicago with a 4.04 goals allowed average.
Defense, defense, defense is the major glaring issue for the Blackhawks. The problem is that there is no knight in shining armor leading the calvary to improve the defense. Connor Murphy is close to a return to action, which is good, but not much to move the needle. Carl Dahlstrom could eventually get a look in Chicago this season, but again won’t move the needle very much. The easier move to make for Stan Bowman and the Blackhawks to do to inject a bit of energy into the lineup would be to call-up a forward. As we laid-out last week, the IceHogs have a number of options up-front for Chicago to potentially choose from.
The most likely and most popular choice is Dylan Sikura.
Dylan Sikura of the Rockford IceHogs (Courtesy: Rockford IceHogs)
As mentioned before, Sikura is leading the IceHogs in points with 16 over 24 games this season and ranks in a five-way tie for fifth in rookie scoring in the AHL. Sikura also ranks at the top of shots on goal for all rookies and is second in the league with 82 shots on goal, seven behind league-leader Brandon Pirri.
The drawback to Sikura’s game is that he is a smaller-framed player that likes to play more from the perimeter. That doesn’t translate great in the NHL where players are bigger, stronger, faster. The case for calling up Sikura is that he could drive offensive possession numbers and use his ability to create scoring chances in a secondary role.
The Blackhawks lack in secondary scoring chances and goals produced. Out of the 77 goals scored this season, 11 have come from defensemen. So of the 66 goals scored by forwards, 43 have come from four different players: Patrick Kane (13), Jonathan Toews (12), Alex DeBrincat (10), and Brandon Saad (8).
Dylan Sikura of the Rockford IceHogs. (Courtesy: Rockford IceHogs)
By simple math, the best kind of math, the 23 other goals scored by forwards have come from the other 12 regular forwards to play for Chicago this season. Just less than 2 goals per forward for the rest of the group is not going to get it done offensively in the NHL, especially with three forwards (Luke Johnson, Andreas Martinsen, Chris Kunitz) playing more than 10 games with the Blackhawks and having yet to score this season.
Again, with no saving grace coming from the IceHogs as of now, the younger Sikura brother could be the best offensive option that head coach Jeremy Colliton could try to use to bring a new face into the locker to try to jolt the secondary scoring chances to take the pressure off of the Chicago top-six on a nightly basis.
Stats For Your Consideration
- The IceHogs improved their record to 10-9-5 (25 pts, 0.521 pt%)
- Rockford sits in 4th place in the Central Division on points, 6th on point-percentage
- IceHogs powerplay has earned the 3rd-most opportunities in the AHL this season with 112
- IceHogs rank 24th in the AHL in powerplay percentage at 14.3-percent
- Rockford’s penalty-kill has been shorthanded 101 times, 14th in the AHL
- IceHogs hold the league’s 5th ranked penalty-killing unit at 87.1-percent
- Jordan Schroeder and Dylan Sikura are tied for the highest point-per-game pace at 0.67
- Only players with more than 10 games played
- Darren Raddysh leads all defensemen in points with 15 (5 G, 10 A)
- Collin Delia holds a 5-4-4 record with the IceHogs, making a team-high 14 starts this season
- Delia’s 2.35 GAA ranks 6th in the AHL among qualified goalies
- Delia’s 0.932 save-percentage ranks 2nd in the AHL among qualified goalies
- IceHogs are 4-6-2 under interim head coach Derek King since Nov. 6
What’s Next?
The IceHogs complete their four-game homestand with another two-game weekend set beginning on Friday night as the Grand Rapids Griffins make their first trip to Rockford of the season. Puck drop for Friday night is set for 7pm CT at the BMO Harris Bank Center. Following that, the IceHogs play host to the Chicago Wolves on Saturday night. Another installment of the Illinois Lottery Cup Rivalry, puck drop for Saturday is set for 6pm CT in Rockford.