Reeling in the rest of the pack

 
TRENTON, N.J. – It seems as if every time we check in with the Trenton Devils they are occupying third place in the East Division and eleventh place in the American Conference playoff race. The major difference between March 1 and the last time we updated the readers on the trials and tribulations of the T-Devils is that they are closer to grabbing a playoff spot. Trenton has added eleven wins to their total since January 22. This includes taking three of their last four bouts with the once-mighty Reading Royals, who have been depleted by AHL call-ups. The T-Devils are also currently on a six game win streak in which they have steam-rolled their opponents by a collective score of 33-14.
 

The turn-around began with a road-trip to Estero, Florida, for a three-game series against the Everblades. The first two games of the series were decided by one goal; a 2-1 win and a 5-4 loss. The third game represented a significant turn-around in the team’s offensive luck when Northeastern University graduate and ECHL rookie, Ryan Ginand put away three goals for his first professional hat-trick; which happened to be Trenton’s first hat-trick of the season.
 
Bad luck slapped the Devils in the face upon their return to the Sun National Bank Center for their February 3 match-up with the Johnstown Chiefs. The team caught no offensive breaks and wound up dropping a 3-0 decision to the Chiefs, who they had defeated on five of six prior occasions during the season.
 
Two days later the Reading Royals came back into town holding an 8-0 advantage over the T-Devils in the season series. The Trenton crowd assumed it was to be another shellacking, especially considering the 3-0 shut-out by Johnstown, they witnessed the prior game. But a solid performance by Matt Vokes (1 goal, 3 assists) and Ryan Ginand (2 goals) sparked a 4-1 victory over their East Division antagonists.
 
Trenton then laid another goose egg in a 2-0 loss to Elmira to cap the week, but the following weekend of Friday February 12 and 13 they split a home-and-away series with the Royals, winning 5-3 at home and losing 6-5 at Reading in a comeback attempt that fell-short by one goal. The loss to Reading on the 13 represents the last time Trenton has lost.
 
During the current six game win streak Trenton has received big contributions from players both old and new.
 
Chris Poli, who had twice missed large chunks of the season due to injuries, is riding a five-game point streak (six games, if you include the game in which he was injured before missing a month of action). While in Johnstown, for the T-Devils last ever trip to play the Chiefs on the road, Poli put up a goal and an assist in the first night of action. Then on the second night, he recorded Trenton’s second hat-trick of the season, with two power play goals and a tally at even-strength during a 6-2 victory.
 
Matt Vokes came alive during the three-game series in Florida at the end of January. His point total increased by 20 (9 goals, 11 assists) during the month of February. The night following Chris Poli’s hat-trick in Johnstown the T-Devils returned home to take on the Wheeling Nailers and Vokes exploded for four goals during their 7-4 victory. Vokes is now Trenton’s second-leading point-getter for the season with 37 points overall (13 goals, 24 assists).
 
Jack Combs racked-up Trenton’s third hat-trick in a week during the T-Devil’s 7-1 clobbering of the Royals on February 27. He is fifth in points amongst the T-Devils, but second in goals behind Jeff Prough with 18 (17 goals as a T-Devil).
 
Jeff Prough has been Trenton’s most consistent scorer throughout the season (20 goals, 20 assists). He averages four goals a month despite being called up to the Lowell Devils of the AHL on several occasions. His defensive skill is also called-upon constantly on Trenton’s power-play unit, on which he shares a considerable amount of time with Tony Zancanaro.
 
A critical part of the Trenton’s turn-around has been an improvement in the defensive support given to the team’s netminders, and the emergence of Dave Caruso as the club’s number-one goalkeeper. Following the Devils road-trip to Florida, Gerald Coleman sustained a lower-body injury that sidelined him for several games. Caruso was given the starting nod for five straight games, going 3-2 during that stretch. Coleman shelled for six goals upon his return so Caruso started the next three games, all of which were wins.
 
Coleman was in net for the team’s 7-4 victory over Wheeling, but most likely due to the fact that Caruso had played back-to-back nights in Johnstown the two prior days. Caruso jumped right back in the saddle for a pair of back-to back wins in Elmira versus the Jackals and at home versus the Royals for his sixth straight victory in six straight starts, a career-best streak.
 
Caruso’s goals-against average and save-percentage have improved drastically from January-end to February-end. He started the month of February with a GAA of 3.39 and a save percentage of 0.900. By only allowing 18 goals in nine games, five games of which he only let up one goal each outing, his GAA dropped to 3.00 even. His save percentage improved to 0.912.
 
The offense, defense, and goaltending will need to maintain these improvements in order to make the playoffs. As mentioned earlier, they still occupy third place in their division and eleventh place in the conference, but by a much closer margin. They temporarily occupied second and tenth for a single day as they overtook the Reading Royals by one point in the standings, but were dropped down when Reading won the next day while they had no games scheduled.
 
The teams which Trenton (57 points) will be gunning for, in order of who can be caught soonest, are Reading & Gwinnett (10^th and 9^th place with 58 points), Wheeling (8^th with 59 points, Toledo (7^th with 62 points), Charlotte (6^th with 66 points), and the Elmira Jackal (1^st in the East Division with 67 points which puts them as the automatic third seed in the American Conference). The T-Devils have exactly sixteen games remaining. Most of them against teams they are directly competing with for the last several playoff spots.
 
The Reading Royals have only been defeated by Trenton three times out of twelve meetings this season, but those three wins were recent and were as a result of Reading’s roster being scavenged by their parent clubs ( Boston and Toronto) to fill needs in the AHL. Their two remaining match-ups are on Tuesday March 2 at 7:00 in Trenton and on Saturday April 3 at 7:05 in Reading, the last regular-season game for both clubs.
 
This coming weekend Trenton visits the Toledo Walleye on Friday March 5, then heads back east, to take on the Wheeling Nailers for back-to-back games on Saturday and Sunday March 6 and 7 at the WesBanco Arena. While Trenton is 0-for-3 against the Walleye, two of the three games went to overtime. Another factor that gives hope to Trenton is that Toledo won only four of twelve games in February.
 
The T-Devils are 2-1 versus the Nailers this season, dropping a 6-5 decision in a shootout at the beginning of the year, but then delivering a 5-2 win in January and a 7-4 win last week. All three games thus far have taken place in Trenton with Coleman appearing in all three meetings.
 
Following their road-trip Trenton returns home for two games against the Toledo Walleye on Wednesday March 10 and Friday March 12. This marks the first time that the Walleye have visited Trenton this season.
 
On Saturday March 13 the Kalamazoo Wings return to town for one final meeting of the season. The last pair of games these two teams played against each other in November there was much bad blood as there were six fights and several misconduct penalties handed out. Kalamazoo shut the Devils out 5-0 on the first night, but the Devils vanquished the K-Wings by a score of 4-3.
 
The T-Devils then return to the road to face Charlotte Checkers on Friday March 19 and the Gwinnett Gladiators in a pair of back-to-back games on Saturday and Sunday March 20 and 21. Their only previous meeting with Gwinnett in December was a 4-3 victory for Caruso. Look for Caruso to put forth another pair of big performances as playing in Gwinnett is always a “homecoming game” for him since he grew up in nearby Rome, Georgia. The T-Devils have not faced the Charlotte Checkers this season.
 
Once they return from Georgia, the T-Devils face the Johnstown Chiefs for the last time at home on Wednesday March 24. On Friday March 26 through Saturday, March 28, they face the Elmira Jackals, whom they hold a 7-3 record over this season. The first of the remaining four games against the Jackals takes place in Elmira and then they return home to face the Jackals at home on Saturday, Sunday, and the following Friday April 2, before closing out the regular season in Reading against the Royals on Saturday, April 3.
 
Contact the writer at Michael.Meier@prohockeynews.com  
Contact the photographer at Rob.Huelsman@prohockeynews.com