February 16th 2008 - Fort Wayne, IN --- The first-place Komets won all three games played to gain six points in week 16 and increase their margin over second-place Flint to 12 points. The Komets improved to 30-11-3-1 for 64 points and matched last season's pace of 30 wins after 45 games.
The Komets started the week with a 5-2 win at Bloomington Wednesday. Friday the Komets posted an IHL high 11th straight home win shutting out the visiting Flint Generals 5-0. Saturday the Komets posted their fourth straight win over Kalamazoo 5-2 and are unbeaten in eight straight games at Kalamazoo dating back to Jan. 13, 2007.
Aquino, Reiter, players of January.....the IHL announced Friday, Feb. 1, that Fort Wayne winger Luciano Aquino was named the Aquafina Rookie of the Month and Komet goalie Kevin Reiter was named the Southern Sports Supply Goaltender of the Month for January. Aquino gets the nod for Rookie of the Month for the third straight month after scoring 13 points (5 goals, 8 assists) during January. Reiter snagged his second monthly honor of the year after completing January with a 1.96 goals-against average and .929 save percentage. Reiter registered four shutouts in the month including a Komet's record three consecutive shutouts
Komets recent action
The Komets turned back the visiting Bloomington PrairieThunder 6-1 on Sunday 2/10 night to extend their home win streak to 13 games and overall winning streak to five.
The Komet's record improves to 32-11-3-1 for 68 points after 47 games. Bloomington falls to 17-25-2-1.
Winger David Hukalo notched a pair while Mathieu Curadeau (C), P.C. Drouin (LW), Mitch Woods (RW) and Evgeny Saidachev (RW) each contributed tallies. Drouin's goal gives the winger a league-high point scoring streak of 10 games (3 goals, 11 assists). Konstantin Shafranov (LW) dished three assists for his fifth multi-point game of the season.
Brett Holmberg (RW) was the lone scorer for Bloomington as he spoiled Komet goalie Kevin Reiter's bid for a shutout at 19:10 of the third period.
Reiter registered his 20th win of the season on 18 saves. Thunder netminder Derek Dolson suffered his 12th loss of the season making 28 saves on 33 shots before Loic Lacasse entered in relief at the start of the third frame. Lacasse finished the game with seven stops on eight shots.
Sunday's game marked the 700th Fort Wayne career game for defenseman Guy Dupuis who posted an assist in the match to move ahead of all IHL defensemen with 31 points.
On Friday 2/8, the Komets allowed a season low 13 shots on goal and grounded the visiting Port Huron IceHawks 4-1 in celebration of the season's first sell-out of 10,456 at the Memorial Coliseum in Fort Wayne on Comcast Report Card Night Friday.
The capacity crowd was entertained with three unanswered goals by the home team in the first period. Evgeny Saidachev (RW), Colin Chaulk (C) and Luciano Aquino (RW) each hit the net to put the Komets up 3-0 at the end of the first frame.
There was no scoring in the second period. Komet defenseman Guy Dupuis found the back of the net at 6:50 of the third period on the power play to put Fort Wayne ahead 4-0. P.C. Drouin (LW) dished a helper to extend his league-high point-scoring and assist streak to nine games (2 goals, 11 assists).
Port Huron's Robert Snowball (RW) ruined Fort Wayne goaltender Nick Boucher's bid for his first shutout of the season with the IceHawk's only marker of the game at 18:38 of the third. Boucher earned his 12th win of the season on 12 saves. Marty Magers suffered his seventh loss of the campaign for the IceHawks stopping 31 of 35 shots.
The Komets spoiled Port Huron's bid to move into a second place tie with the idle Flint Generals as the IceHawks fall to 24-23-0-2 for 50 points after 49 games. Fort Wayne improves to 31-11-3-1 for 66 points after 46 games and pads their lead over Flint to 14 points.
The win was the Komet's fourth straight overall and 12th straight at home. Fort Wayne hasn't lost at home since Dec. 21 and improves to 19-3-2-0 on Coliseum ice after 24 home games.
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