All of the goals came on the power play, and it marked the second straight that the Rivermen had three such goals to earn a victory over the Bulldogs. Peoria was 3-for-6 on Sunday and 3-for-5 with the man-advantage in a 4-2 victory in Hamilton on October 21.
Peoria (18-12-1-2) opened the scoring midway through the first period when defenceman Stephen Wood fired a snap shot from the high slot that whistled just wide right of the Hamilton goal. The rebound bounced off the end boards to Whitfield, whose backhand banked in off of a prone Bulldogs Jaroslav Halak.
The Bulldogs tied it with a power-play goal of their own just less than four minutes later. Defenceman Mathieu Roy - stationed at the point - took a pass from centre Mikhail Grabovski and slapped a low shot on net that Rivermen goaltender Chris Beckford-Tseu stopped with his right pad. The rebound landed just off the left post for uncovered right wing Duncan Milroy, who popped the puck over Beckford-Tseu into the net at 13:12. It was Milroy's 15th tally of the year.
Peoria pulled ahead 7:34 into the second period when Jon DiSalvatore deflected a shot by Whitfield up under the crossbar and made it a two-goal advantage five minutes later when Peter Sejna's shot from the point went by Halak inside the right post.
Hamilton (21-13-1-1) responded 1:45 later on a 5-on-3 power play. Centre Corey Locke, stationed at the right goal post, took a goal-mouth feed from Milroy, who was just off to the left of the goal, and snapped home his 10th of the year to make it 3-2.
It was as close as the Bulldogs would get as they failed to score the equalizer with the extra attacker in the final 1:10 of the game.
Beckford-Tseu made 30 saves while Halak, the AHL's leading netminder, stopped 32 of 35 shots in the loss.