PEORIA, Ill. – The Quad City Storm and Peoria Rivermen renewed their rivalry again on Saturday night, with the two teams facing off for Peoria’s annual Teddy Bear Toss Night. The bears were the only soft things on the ice Saturday, as hits were teeth-rattling and fists were a-flying. The Storm continue their losing streak, now having lost seven in a row.

THE GOOD

Normally there is a larger section for the good, but the Storm showed nothing good within their play on Saturday. The one redeeming feature of the game was the Storm’s ability to come out to play better in the third period.

“When we decided to actually come and play in the third period, we actually looked pretty good. but other than that, it wasn’t a very good game,” said Head Coach Dave Pszenyczny.

Passing was crisper within the final twenty minutes of play, but already being down 4-0, it was too great a hurdle to overcome. Passing doesn’t score goals either, so that alone with fewer penalties couldn’t change the course of the game.

THE BAD

The Storm lacked discipline throughout the game, allowing Peoria to goad them in to taking penalties. The team took eleven penalties throughout the night, and while only five of those penalties led to power plays (due to coinciding penalties), they were just enough to keep the Storm off the scoreboard the entire night. Within the span of three minutes, the Storm had two too many men penalties called against them, one of those leading to the lone power play goal of the night.
Defense was undisciplined throughout the game, as well, with the Storm not guarding players and allowing the passing lanes to remain open. 

THE ALRIGHT

In prior games, the physicality of the Storm has ranged from too much to not enough. Once again, the Storm chose to fight the wrong battles with their penalties, spending too much time in the box for the wrong reasons. The team is moving in the right direction in regards to taking penalties, but allowed the rivalry to come in between victory and revenge.
This coming weekend, the Storm will make a southern swing to both the Macon Mayhem and Birmingham Bulls. Opening faceoff for Friday and Saturday’s contests against Macon will be 7:00 pm CST, while Sunday’s affair against Birmingham will be a matinee at 3:00 pm CST.
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