Eagles Takeaways: Miner secures second straight shutout and first place in Pacific

Trent Miner gets his first career AHL back-to-back shutouts while Tye Felhaber adds two goals for support.

Loveland, CO — Last night the Colorado Eagles unseated the number one Ontario Reign (LAK) in a shutout victory at Blue Arena. To start the night, the Eagles were only one point out of first place in the division. Colorado will have the upper hand as they have three games in hand on Calgary (CGY) and four games in hand on the Coachella Valley (SEA). Calgary will be in action tonight against the Abbotsford Canucks (VAN) while the Firebirds are idle. Matthew Phillips, who was a veteran scratch last night, returned to the lineup to help with some scoring support. The Eagles would win once again 4–0, their second shutout in a row. Here are the takeaways from the victory over Ontario.

Takeaways

Colorado Native Bryan Yoon has been impressive in his short stint with the Eagles so far. Playing in just his ninth game for the Eagles tonight, he has been a solid replacement for the injured John Ludvig. The former Colorado College captain scored his first AHL assist last night and has been showing significant improvements in front of the net. His strong skating allows for him to be extremely mobile in the defensive zone and on the blue line. Yoon is someone to monitor.

“It’s something like we’ve been building and working on all season long,” said head coach Aaron Schneekloth. “Guys are getting to come together. Know how we need to play. I thought we did a really nice job in the second period. We were kind of under fire. Ontario had a nice push, and Trent was there, and then we got a nice reset at one of the TV timeouts and got back to our game. And so, yeah, I mean, we’ve just been building all season long to try to get to this point, and now it’s in our control to manage where it goes from here.”

The Eagles’ defense was everywhere they needed to be tonight. They were in front of the crease for goaltender Trent Miner and clearing away all the garbage. As things got more and more physical, the whole defensive core stepped up to the challenge. The smallest of all the defensemen, Jack Ahcan, was even dealing out his own fair share of hits in front of the net. Calle Rosén and Wyatt Aamodt added their own touch to the offense with one assist each and set the tone for the Eagles.

Miner has back-to-back shutout wins in two nights for the first time in his AHL career. The last goal he allowed was against the Texas Stars (DAL) on February 21, giving him a shutout streak of over 170 minutes. With the win, the Eagles now will draw into first place in the Pacific Division with a one point lead over the Wranglers.

“I wouldn’t even say it’s me, it’s our team,” said Miner on his shutout streak. “These are all big games for us that we need, and that’s what we’ve done, is just come up and play well. We give ourselves a chance every day.”

Upcoming

The Eagles will hit the road for six straight games starting with a one-game stop against the Bakersfield Condors (EDM) at Mechanics Bank Arena at 7:30 p.m. MT on Wednesday.