Heat Looking Forward to Time at Home

The Stockton Heat return Wednesday night to Stockton Arena after a three-game road swing that saw the team fall in San Jose to the Barracuda before splitting a two-game weekend series in San Diego with the Gulls.

Saturday’s win in San Diego put an end to the Heat’s six-game road-losing streak and was also the first time Stockton pulled out a victory in San Diego this season.

With a four-game homestand now ahead of them, Turner Elson thinks that getting the road woes off their minds will help the Heat continue their hot streak at home.

“Our confidence on the road was kind of diminished with how badly we were struggling,” Elson said. “I thought we played really hard those two games in San Diego and that last game helped us get over the hump we’ve been trying to crawl over. It’s been a battle, but we’re back at home and we’re ready to go.”

With just 18 games remaining on the schedule and the Heat still in the thick of the playoff race in the Pacific Division, the focus for this homestand rests solely on collecting points and preventing the opponent from doing the same.

Certainly for the Heat, there is no better place for them to be playing right now than at Stockton Arena where they’ve won 12 of their last 13 games.

“We’re a confident group at home,” defenseman Kenney Morrison said. “We’ve been pretty good here, so we just have to keep working hard and get some wins for the playoff push.”

The homestand will begin Wednesday when San Jose comes to town – the only team to beat Stockton during their recent stretch of home success, but also the team that defeated the Heat in their home building last week when Stockton traveled to the SAP Center.

“We still have a bad taste in our mouth from our last game against them obviously, so that’s a big game,” defenseman Pat Sieloff said. “We’re looking forward to this stretch of home games and we want to collect as many points as possible.”

With all the movement along the backend for the Heat in recent weeks, the team is trying to collect those points with a bit of a makeshift group of defensemen that has played well recently.

Defensemen like Morrison and Sieloff have been thrust into roles they were not initially filling thanks to injuries and call-ups, but have responded with solid play that has helped steady a blueline that is missing five of its regular bodies.

For Sieloff, growing more comfortable with an expanded role is the key and last weekend in San Diego he broke out with his first multi-point game in his AHL career, garnering a pair of assists on Saturday.

“The more you play, the more puck touches you get and you get more comfortable,” Sieloff explained. “I just have tried to throw a few more pucks on net and get good rebounds. It helps when the forwards are hungry for pucks and finishing those rebounds.”

For the Heat to continue their success at home, and affectively continue to push for a playoff spot, they’ll need that blueline to hold up during this homestand. However, it’s not just the defensemen – it’s the whole team contributing defensively to make sure that they are not allowing too many chances to the opponent.

This homestand is key for the Heat to push north in the standings and a good opportunity to even themselves with the teams that are just above them in the rankings.

“We always want to be a good home team that has a lot of fans and is tough to beat in our building,” Elson explained. “Obviously we want to win all four of these games, but I think three is a good mark for us to try and hit. We need as many points as we can get and it’s exciting to have this stretch come at home because we’re always good at home.”