Despite having played in different leagues for as long as there has been hockey in either city, the Quad Cities and Peoria have had a hockey rivalry dating back to the two teams' ECHL/UHL pre-season clashes. Wednesday night the clubs finally met on equal footing as the Quad City Flames downed the Peoria Rivermen 4-2 at Carver Arena in an AHL pre-season contest Wednesday night.
At the game's outset, Peoria took the play to the Flames, just missing on a close scoring chance and hemming the puck in the Quad City end for the opening 45 seconds. The pace did not back off much in the opening frame, which featured several hard checks and one scrap.
The two teams traded goals on the first special teams chance of the period, with the Rivermen getting on the board first thanks to a shorthanded marker from Francois-Pierre Guenette. Arttu Luttinen tapped the puck ahead to Guenette after blocking a pass near the Rivermen blue line, and the speedy winger cashed in the man-down chance by tucking the puck past the right pad of Flames' goaltender Matt Keetley at 11:13.
On the same power play, the Flames responded 37 seconds later when Gerry Burke rang a wrist shot in off the far post to knot the game at one. Tim Ramholt and Justin Donati assisted on the marker to wrap the scoring for the frame, in which Peoria outshot Quad City 8-4.
After a physical second period where the Flames opened up a 4-1 lead, the Rivermen managed to halve the gap with a power play marker of its own. Josh Soares banked the puck in off a Quad City defender from the side of the net at 3:07 with help from Luttinen and Bryan Miller, the only goal of the final frame.
Chris Beckford-Tseu took the loss for Peoria, finishing with eight saves on 11 shots in the first 29:55 of the game. Mike McKenna followed with 28:35 of relief work, making seven saves on eight shots. Keetley went the distance for Quad City, making 22 saves for the win.
Peoria will continue its pre-season schedule when the West Division's other new team, the Rockford IceHogs, come to town on Friday night at 7 pm. Tickets are on sale now through all TicketMaster locations, on line at www.TicketMaster.com , or at the Peoria Civic Center box office. Tickets are $10 for Lower Bowl and $8 for Upper Bowl seating.
