Thunder heads into ECHL stretch run

Sometimes, win or lose, a game can interrupt the Thunder’s progress.

A few days off here and there doesn’t just allow the players to nurse nagging injuries that sprout during the grind of a hockey season. They also enable coach Kevin McClelland to mold players’ minds and reinforce his methods and ideas.

“We had to tighten some things up and go over a few things,” McClelland said following Wichita’s 4-1 win over Brampton on Friday. “It seems like with this group you have to keep going over things, and that’s not a bad thing. You just have to keep it fresh in their mind, I guess.”

McClelland wants his players to stay sharp as the Thunder reaches the final 20-or-so games, when nearly every team in the ECHL Central division is fighting for playoff positioning and most of the games are narrowly decided.

Wichita’s five days off before Friday paid dividends as Wichita won by three goals for the first time since Jan. 9. Six of the Thunder’s eight wins since then came by one goal, as did three losses.

The Thunder has no more four-day breaks between games and just three three-day layoffs, and all 21 of its remaining games are against Central-division opponents. With Wichita holding onto the final playoff spot in the division by one point over Rapid City, any one-goal game could decide who enters the postseason.

“We’ve been in a lot of close games, too,” McClelland said. “We’ve lost a few leads late and we want to make sure we’ve corrected that, too. When we were (playing well in January) we were winning all those one-goal games, then we started losing one-goal games. That’s how close this league is.”

Those close games necessitate a quality goaltender, and Wichita seems to have that in workhorse Tim Boron. With platoon partner Tyler Bunz called up to Triple-A Oklahoma City since the beginning of February, Boron has played without a rest while finishing with a 5-3-1 February record.

Boron’s performance has been somewhat under-the-radar, as his save percentage dropped from .918 in December and .883 in January to .873 last month. But in close games he has been solid, stopping at least 25 shots in three wins.

“There’s been some tight games we’ve been winning,” Thunder forward Ian Duval said. “The only reason is because (Boron) has been standing on his head. He’s been taking the brunt of the workload since Bunzy got called up, and he’s been doing awesome for us.”

This story was originally published February 28, 2015 at 6:46 PM with the headline "Thunder heads into ECHL stretch run."