PEORIA, IL – Behind goaltender Stephen Klein’s third straight shutout, the Peoria Rivermen topped the Quad City Storm, 2-0, on Friday at the Peoria Civic Center. The win, Peoria’s sixth in a row, lifts the Rivermen to 23-3-3 on the season before tomorrow night’s rematch with the Storm in Peoria.
Klein turned aside all 27 shots he saw to earn his third straight shutout, and currently sits at 209:29 consecutive scoreless minutes, the longest such regular-season streak in the history of 
the Southern Professional Hockey League.
Peoria winger Ben Blasko opened the scoring, notching his 11th goal on the season at the 4:58 mark of the first period. Rivermen winger Joe Kalisz, in his first game back from a 15-game stint with ECHL Maine, carried the puck out of the left-wing corner of the Quad City zone and banked it off the body of teammate Mike Gurtler atop the crease. The puck found Blasko in front of the net, and he popped it over Storm netminder Peter Di Salvo for a 1-0 lead.
Peoria held the Storm to just four shots in the game’s first 20 minutes despite two Quad City power-plays before yielding 23 SOG in the final two periods, holding the Storm’s league-leading power-play 0-for-6 on the evening.
The team’s combined for 116 penalty minutes in the final five minutes of the middle period, with three players from each team issued game misconducts. Peoria’s Austin Vieth, Jake Hamilton, Drake Hunter, Pijus Rulevicius and Ben Oskroba all tallied fighting majors in the final five minutes of the frame, while Quad City’s Patrick Harrison, Sean Kacerosky, Tommy Tsicos, Ondrej Misovic and Phil Bronner also received major penalties for fighting.
Rivermen winger Beau Walker pushed the Rivermen lead to two at the 5:41 mark of the third period after cranking a slap shot from just inside the blue line past Di Salvo after a long pass by teammate Kevin Patterson.
Game recap provided by official SPHL media release
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