Peter Sivak is sizzling, and on pace for Alaska Aces' goal-scoring record

Being a little slow on the uptake sometimes — glacially slow, in this instance — it occurred to me during the Alaska Aces' 4-3 win over the Idaho Steelheads on Wednesday night that, hey, that Peter Sivak really is something.

So I started digging around in the numbers and quickly discovered, uh, yeah, Einstein, you're a little late to the party here.

Sivak's goal Wednesday night pushed his ECHL-leading total to 31 goals in 39 games, which in notable on a number of fronts.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but in helping the Aces to the Kelly Cup in 2013-14, when he was First Team All-ECHL, Sivak scored 31 goals, tied for second on the circuit, in 67 games. Already, he's matched his best goal-scoring season with the Aces, and the club has 33 regular-season games left. He's just two goals shy of matching his ECHL career-high of 33, which he delivered in 64 games for the now-defunct San Francisco Bulls in 2012-13. That was the first season in North American for the Slovakian who is now a naturalized American citizen.

Sivak is averaging .79 goals per game, which puts him on pace for 56.88 goals this season — we'll call it 57. The Aces' record for goals in a single season is Chris Minard's 49 in 69 games in 2004-05, when his center was Scott Gomez, who was something of a playmaker (and ECHL Most Valuable Player that season during the NHL lockout). (No. 2 all-time for the Aces is Wes Goldie's 46 goals in 72 games in 2010-11, when the Aces won the second of the franchise's three Kelly Cups.)

Sivak's average this season (.79 goals per game) is the best from a league-leading sniper since Utah's Ryan Kinasewich bagged 48 goals in a mere 59 games in 2009-10 for an average of .81 goals per game.

He's also on pace to be the ECHL's first 50-goal scorer since Florida's Kevin Baker tortured masked men for 57 goals in 70 games in 2008-09. (The ECHL record for goals in a season is held by Trevor Jobe — later, briefly an Anchorage Ace in the old West Coast Hockey League — who racked 85 goals in just 61 games for the Nashville Knights in 1992-93 (a ridiculous 1.39 goals per game). Man, the early 90s rocked — back-checking's for suckas!).

Sivak, second in ECHL points (56) behind Allen Americans point-machine Chad Costello (73), the two-time reigning points champ, is prospering for a number of reasons, not the least of which is he is highly skilled and possesses a high hockey IQ. He's also flourishing with center Stephen Perfetto, who is third in the league in points (51) — those two have that hard-to-define, know-it-when-you-see-it chemistry. And he's a pro's pro — watches what he eats, always puts in his work (often riding a stationary bike after games and hitting the weights after practice), gets his rest and doesn't cut corners.

Also, Sivak does not need to be encouraged to shoot. He sits second in the league in shots on goal with 195 in 39 games for an average of 5.0 shots per game. He's a high-volume gunner — Sivak this season has produced one 10-shot game, two nine-shot games (including Wednesday), two eight-shot games and four seven-shot games. That's a big reason he has produced goals in 23 of 39 games, points in 27 of 39 games, two hat tricks and six multiple-goal games.

Sivak's wicked pace this season comes with a caveat of sorts — his shooting percentage is wildly higher than his historical average. In four previous ECHL seasons, Sivak's shooting percentage averaged 11.0. He's currently abusing goalies at 15.9 percent. That's a 44.5-percent increase.

Hard to see that current shooting percentage holding up for an entire season. Then again, Sivak's delivered it through slightly more than half a season, so who knows? Least of all, me — sorta slow on the uptake, you know.