Walleye News and Notes

Home wins spark winning week: Wednesday was a rare feat as the Walleye lost a 6-4 third period lead in Wheeling and fell in overtime for the first time this year 7-6. Toledo rebounded over the weekend outscoring Rapid City 4-0 in the third period Saturday for a 6-2 win and then extending a 2-1 lead Sunday going to the third period for a 4-1 victory. The Walleye have won five straight games at home. Thank you fans: Both Saturday and Sunday saw the Huntington Center filled beyond capacity with crowds of 8,300 (Saturday) and 7,717 (Sunday). That brings Toledo’s sellout total to 12 this year in just 17 home contests. The single season record for standing room crowds in a Walleye season is 18 reached last year. For the season the Walleye are averaging 7,318 per contest when a sellout is 7,431 meaning the Huntington Center has been filled a whopping 98.5% by far the best in the ECHL. Offense back in a big way: Toledo scored 16 goals over the three games played this past week bringing their season total to 176 goals in 42 games played an average of 4.19 per contest. The Walleye are the only team in the ECHL to average over 4 goals per contest. The defense hasn’t been too shabby either allowing just 118 goals for the third best average in the league at 2.81. January scoring: Toledo had seven players finish the month of January with at least 11 points. Tyson Spink led the way with 8 goals and 8 assists. Shane Berschbach picked up an amazing 14 helpers of his 15 points over 12 contests. Evan Rankin (8G, 6A), Nolan Zajac (4G, 9A), Alden Hirschfeld (6G, 6A), Zach Nastasiuk (5G, 7A) and Tylor Spink (4G, 7A) also finished with a big month. 2016 Kelly Cup playoffs matchup back this week: The team that bested the Walleye in seven games during last year’s playoffs the Reading Royals comes to Toledo this week for a pair of games on Wednesday and Friday night. The Walleye won both regular season matchups last year but the Royals bested Toledo 4-3 in the first round series. Toledo has an all-time ECHL record of 35-27-8 against the Royals. To round out the week, the Walleye have the Kalamazoo Wings coming to Toledo. Kalamazoo has won five straight games and is 8-1-1 over the past ten contests heading into play this week. It’s the end of the world: This weekend features a two-day promotion with Toledo’s End of the World weekend! Toledo will be wearing special doomsday jerseys on both Friday and Saturday night with Friday being “Alien Night” and Saturday’s theme of “Fear the Walking Dead”. Select jerseys will be raffled off during Friday’s game and the rest will be auctioned postgame on Saturday with proceeds going to the Walleye Wishing Well and the Sight Center.

Walleye Player of the Week: Tyson Spink (2 goals – 5 assists = 7 points)

Walleye Goaltender of the Week: Jake Paterson (2-0-1, 3.26 GAA, .898 save %)