Coralville, Iowa- A beautiful night in Iowa ended with a beautiful Heartlanders win by a score of 3-1, which was sealed with a Jake Durflinger empty-net goal with 1:35 to go in the game. The game between the Landers and the Kalamazoo Wings was the first of 11 for the 2023-24 season and was hopefully indicative of future results for Iowa against the K-Wings.
The game was smooth, fast, and had relatively few stoppages, an unusual but welcome part of the Heartlanders’ two points. Iowa’s defense was rock solid, only allowing one goal, against the momentum of play.
The Landers had long periods of time in the attacking zone, made smart passes, worked the defense to find smart shots, reduced their penalty time, and made Kalamazoo feel like the one or two leads Iowa maintained felt like four.
Fans also got to witness an interesting 1-in-1 Million event when a perfectly struck shot from Jesse Jacques broke Kalamazoo goalkeeper Johnathan Lemieux’s helmet, something which most fans were stunned to see.
To open the scoring, fan-favorite Yuki Miura buried the puck in the net for on a breakaway following beautiful setting passes by Odeen Tufto and Landon Kosior for his first goal of the young season. Before the replay could even be shown, Justin Wells and Maxim Cajkovic found Nick Campoli to make it 2-0.
As the game went on, the K-Wings began falling victim to their own mistakes, allowing Iowa frequent power plays, giving up momentum, and digging their deficit deeper than the score would tell you. Iowa had 13 more shots in the game than the K-Wings, something Iowa should be proud of for staying strong defensively while Kalamazoo knows this is in their best interest to fix.
Individual Star of the Game: After being subbed on in the first period in Iowa’s last game, Peyton Jones was stellar at home, earning the first Iowa win of the season and his first donning the buck and prairie rose. Jones was well protected by all three Iowa defensive lines and got a standing ovation for his work between the pipes, and high-fives from his teammates for key saves in the dying seconds of the game. One fan even remarked that #41 is “the way forward” for the Landers.
Group Star of the Game: Did I mention that Iowa’s defense was incredible? This was Iowa’s first time only allowing one or fewer goals at Xtream Arena since February 17, 2023, against Wheeling. Good hockey teams protect their goalkeeper from the puck continually flying in their direction. Great hockey teams kill penalties and capitalize when the other team makes those same mistakes. The Heartlander defense held strong in three separate 4 vs. 4 situations and two power plays, continuing their league-dominating penalty kill.
Iowa is in action again on Thursday, November 9th at 6:30 pm, hosting Kalamazoo for game two of their three-game series. Fans can expect to see Drew DeRidder make his debut in goal for the Heartlanders against his former team, and will hopefully be treated to another quality Heartlander performance.
