Mayhem have eyes on first place

The mindset of “taking games one at a time” is the focus for many teams, and the Macon Mayhem are no different.

But with a little more than a month left in the SPHL season, games are getting bigger and bigger as the Mayhem have their eyes set on gaining home ice for the playoffs.

Macon (27-8-5) is tied for first place with Huntsville (28-10-3) with 59 points. The Mayhem have, however played one few game, giving them a better chance currently to pick up points in the standings to move back to where they spent a good portion of the first two months of the season — leading the SPHL.

“We try not to pay attention to other teams, but we can only control what we can control,” Mayhem forward Jake Trask said. “All year, we’ve been looking at getting in the top spot for home ice, but at the same time we have to take it game by game and just stay in the moment.”

The Mayhem will also be fully stocked on defense with Nick Grasso coming back from injury. In 24 games this year, he has a plus-eight plus-minus rating.

Macon has won eight of its past 10 games, including last weekend’s wins over Pensacola and Knoxville in which goalie Jordan Ruby stood tall under heavy pressure, stopping a combined 75 out of 79 shots in both wins. The play of Ruby, who is 16-4-2 with a 2.23 goals against average, as well as Troy Passingham (5-2-0), continues to give Macon strength on the defensive end.

“Both Jordan and Troy are solid for us on any given night, we have a goalie who can win us hockey games and win games,” Mayhem head coach Kevin Kerr said. “Jordan’s our main guy, but Troy is there supporting him too. We have a lot of confidence in both of those guys, they give us a pretty good tandem.”

The Mayhem have a big chance to pick up points this weekend with three games, all of which will be played at the Macon Coliseum. Macon takes on Mississippi at 7:30 p.m. on Friday and at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday with Pensacola coming to town at 4 p.m. on Sunday.

“I think obviously we have to take care of our games, it’d be nice if we got help,” Kerr said. “We know that the outcome of the regular season is in our hands, I’d rather not rely on other teams and have us do it ourselves.”

Like many teams in the SPHL, Mississippi is looking to improve its position for the looming postseason. The RiverKings are in fifth place, four points out of fourth.

Then again, taking on teams on the upswing has played right into Macon’s hands as of late, and it couldn’t come at a much better time when it comes to players getting dialed in for the postseason. Last week’s win over Pensacola stopped a six-game winning streak by the Ice Flyers, and a 5-2 win the previous week beat a Fayetteville team than had won 10 out of 11 games.

“It seems like we’ve been playing teams with streaks recently, you want to play those teams and the tough competition,” Ruby said. “You need to be well fueled and ready to go and make sure you’re ready to go in the playoffs. We had a little rut maybe a month ago, but now we’re stringing together some good games.”

This story was originally published March 2, 2017 at 2:39 PM with the headline "Mayhem have eyes on first place."