Ice Dogs Maintain Mastery of Rivermen

The nice thing about back-to-back games against the same team is that there can be some carry-over.

After dominating Peoria in the final 30 minutes of Saturday night’s game, the Ice Dogs followed with 60 strong minutes Sunday to beat the Rivermen again, 4-1, in front of an announced 4,073 at the Sports Arena.

“Fundamentally, that was the best game we played all year,” said Ice Dog Coach John Van Boxmeer.

Leading the way was goalie Dave Littman (30 saves), John Lilley (one goal and two assists) and Mark Hardy (a goal and an assist).

The Ice Dogs, 20-15-5 and third in the Southwest Division, might have known it would be a banner day from Hardy’s opening score.

His flick shot at 5:18 of the first period was done while an advertisement for Toyota was stuck to his uniform. The sign, previously attached to the rink-boards, somehow attached itself to Hardy while he tried to control the puck behind Peoria’s net.

“I just shot it, and then one of the guys said ‘Hey you got something stuck to you,’ I didn’t know until then,” Hardy said. “I thought maybe I’d get a free car out of it though.”

Littman has won six of his last seven starts and is tied for second in the league in victories (15). Sunday was the fifth game in which he has given up one goal or less.

“As well as we played, I think we have to step it up even more to go against [division leaders] Utah and Las Vegas,” Lilley said. “It’s a combination of things, but things just happen to be clicking.”

Darci Martini and Rob Kenny also scored for the Ice Dogs. Greg Paslawski scored for Peoria (17-19-2).