Moose look to tie a bow on Texas trip

Looking to avenge a 4-3 loss last Wednesday (Jan. 18), the Manitoba Moose (16-19-3-2) head back to the H-E-B Center to close out the Texas portion of their road trip against the Texas Stars (20-16-1-2) at 7:30 p.m. CT.

Last Game
Manitoba is coming off back-to-back games in San Antonio (Jan. 20,21), with the Moose coming away with a 2-0 shutout win on Friday and a tight 4-2 loss on Saturday. Saturday’s game was a close affair with Kevin Czuczman and Brendan Lemieux scoring the Manitoba markers. San Antonio managed to score the go-head goal at 14:11 in the second and snagged an insurance tally with an empty netter in the game’s dying seconds. The Moose applied plenty of pressure in the third, outshooting the Rampage 11-4 in the final period.

Flash Back
The Moose enter tonight’s game with Texas sporting a 1-2-0-0 record versus the Stars. After splitting a pair of games in December at MTS Centre, the Moose found themselves in Texas on Jan. 18. Despite falling 4-3, the Moose went 1-for-2 on the powerplay and picked up a shorthanded goal.

Shorthanded Success
The Manitoba penalty kill has been stifling in recent games, killing off 37 of 43 powerplays against for an 86 per cent success rate. In their last four games, the Moose took care of 14 of 15 (93.3%) powerplay chances. Quinton Howden also tallied Manitoba’s fifth shorthanded goal of the season on Wednesday, his third of the year – tied for the league lead.

Youthful Leaders
The top three scorers on the Moose roster have a combined 187 games of AHL experience. Jack Roslovic (23 PTS), Dan DeSalvo (21 PTS) and Chase De Leo (20 PTS) head up the offence for Manitoba. Of the 29 other teams in the AHL, just two (Albany, San Jose) have a top scoring trio with less combined games of experience.

Of the 27 remaining teams, 25 clubs have at least one player in their top three who has more games of experience than Manitoba's top three combined. For example, Texas Stars leading scorer Travis Morin has 515 games under his belt coming into tonight's game compared to Roslovic, DeSalvo and De Leo's 187 combined games.

Texas’ Story
Texas welcomes Manitoba to the H-E-B Center after a split with the Wild in Des Moines, IA over the weekend. January has been an up and down month for the Stars, going 5-4-0-0. Texas is in a similar spot to Manitoba – sitting sixth in their respective division. Although, it’s a much tighter race in the Pacific where the Stars only sit five points behind the first-place Ontario Reign. Manitoba’s defensive play will need to be sharp tonight as Texas has a division leading 129 goals. The Moose hope to capitalize on the man advantage tonight as Texas owns the league’s worst penalty kill at 76.1 per cent. Travis Morin leads the Stars with 32 points (13G, 19A) in 39 games. Maxime Lagace has been the go to man between the pipes making 26 starts featuring a 3.29 GAA and 0.894 SV percentage – numbers the Moose will hope to take advantage of if Lagace makes the start.

What’s Next?
The Moose move into the final stretch of their six-game road trip as they make their way to Bojangles’ Coliseum for a two-game set (Jan. 27,28) with the Charlotte Checkers. You can listen to all Manitoba Moose home games live on moosehockey.com/listenlive. Make sure to tune in 15 minutes before the game to hear the pre-game show with Mitch Peacock where he will break down the matchup and have all the latest in Moose news.