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PUTTING THE PEDAL TO THE PUCK

01/16/2009 10:38 AM

By Danielle Catalano

The Binghamton Senators have a couple of tasks on hand this weekend, beginning Friday night at 7:05 p.m. at the Broome County Veterans Memorial Arena in a rematch with the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins. The B-Sens suffered a 4-2 loss last week against their East Division foe and are looking to recapture the two points that slipped away. The second task is to earn a victory against the Bridgeport Sound Tigers Saturday night to break their season series tie, which stands at 3-3.

To help make it a double-win weekend, the team will be applying the momentum gained from their recent back-to-back wins against the Rochester Americans.

“Hopefully with these games against Rochester building up our confidence and Jeff’s focus and his confidence, we’ll get guys scoring,” says left wing Greg Mauldin. “I think last night we had two goals on power plays and then a shorthanded one, and our PK was 100 percent. We can take all of that into two big games in our division, [which] is pretty tight right now…and now Albany is getting hot, so you just never know what’s going to happen. We just have to keep things focused, just keep the pedal down and go.”

Pushing that pedal down is something Mauldin has been doing a lot of lately for the B-Sens. For the month of January, the left wing has produced a +6 rating, 17 shots on goal, and six points (3+3). Mauldin enters Friday’s game with a season-high four-game point streak and has been on nine of the 14 scoring lines during this stretch.

“I was talking to a buddy of mine the other day about this—’09 has been good to me,” Mauldin says, adding quickly, “I think I’ve been playing pretty well lately. I think I’ve been working pretty hard. Even before, I felt I was working pretty hard—I just wasn’t scoring points.”

While his offensive numbers may have misrepresented his work ethic initially, it would be nearly impossible to not notice Mauldin’s presence on the ice now, especially with an overall rating of +8, second highest of team only to linemate Peter Regin, who has a +10 rating.

“Sometimes you get hot,” Mauldin says of his offensive play. “Everyone goes through it. Hennessy went throughout it. Bois went through it….When you’re hot, you just try to ride it as long as you can. Right now, things are going well. I’m just trying to do the same thing day after day.”

“I’m not a superstitious guy,” the left wing contends. “But if you keep doing the same thing each day, hopefully it keeps working out with good results.”