12/11 -- Aeros v. Peoria -- The Can't Buy Me Love Edition

The last time the Houston Aeros played a home game on Teddy Bear night, they scored five goals on five shots within a matter of minutes in the second period. But that was last season when they had some offensive talent. This year, not so much.

The 5110 people who attended the game, luckily, got to throw their stuffed animals out on the ice toward the end of the second period. But that was about all that they got to as the Aeros lost 2-1 in an effort that had me longing for the futility of the Houston Texans.

Peoria’s Tyson Strachan scored at 4:45 of the first period on a play initially set up by Mitch Love down in the Peoria end of the ice. The Aeros scored on a five-on-three power play at 17:30 of the second when Andy Hilbert converted the rebound of a Max Noreau shot for a goal. The scoring action ended at 4:30 of the third when Peoria’s Brett Sonne took advantage of an Aeros screen to bounce the puck past Anton Khudobin to make the score 2-1.

There’s not much else left to say. The defense was good. The guy’s hustled. I think the forwards even took a couple of shots. But they lost, at home, once again. And yet, the Aeros are frustrated. Khudobin’s frustrated that he has to play perfect hockey, and that the offense isn’t doing what the coaches are telling them to do, especially on the power play. Kevin Constantine’s frustrated by the team in the general.

The team’s record dropped to 12-12-2-1 (27 points) which is good enough for fifth place. They’re four points behind Peoria and Rockford -- who they play on Sunday. They’re two points, but many percentage points, behind Milwaukee. And they’ve dropped a total of 15 points behind Texas, and the Stars are quickly pulling away from the rest of the division.

The Aeros will give it another shot on Sunday as they take on the Rockford IceHogs at 4:05.

SOME MISCELLANEOUS GAME NOTES:

As Andrew mentioned below, we talked to Khudobin after the game, and he’s getting frustrated by having to play perfect hockey for the team to win.

“It’s kind of…it’s hard when we score just one goal,” he said afterwards. “On the power play we have to shoot more. Shoot, shoot, and shoot all the time. Because for a goalie it’s really hard, we have to…actually the coach is saying we have to have a guy in front of the goal, but [the other goalie] doesn’t have [that]. Never. Lots of screens, that’s what we need.”

I don’t know about the screens part. There always appear to be a lot of Aeros swarming the goalie and blocking his vision, it’s just that nobody ever wants to take a shot that will take advantage of anything. The team does need to shoot more, especially on the power play were they pass and pass and pass and pass and pass and pass and pass and pass and pass and…the power play’s over.

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The coaches have been trying to figure out what to do about the team’s inability to win games at home. Constantine said he and the assistants have been analyzing everything they can think of, but nothing seems to be working.

“We’re working hard to try to do what we can to win games at home,” Constantine said. And in a way, based on what Constantine, that could be part of the problem. He said that the team plays simpler games on the road, and that at home, they’re trying to do too much. Perhaps Constantine needs to do something to convince the Aeros they’re actually playing a road game.

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Cody Almond returned from the injury list, playing his first game since forever. He and Andy Hilbert -- who played in his only 11th game of the season -- showed what appeared to be some much needed life on the offensive end. But the rest of the squad didn’t appear to be able to do much of anything. Almond, Hilbert, and Khudobin were easily the team’s bright spots tonight.

I know that I was frustrated by the game. This was the first game I’ve seen in nearly three weeks. Since that time, I’ve covered several Houston Cougar football games, as well as some Houston Cougar basketball games. Normally, there’s more exciting than hockey, but after watching the Cougars run up and down football fields and basketball courts, this game was, decidedly, boring. Luckily, or not, I won’t be around for Sunday’s game as I’ll be out of town.

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I hate the “Kiss Cam.” I especially hate the “Kiss Cam” when they do that stupid thing and put the camera on two players from the other team. I think it’s juvenile. That said, good on Mitch Love for playing along with this stupid thing tonight. He didn’t kiss a teammate, but he kissed his glove, then patted a teammate’s helmet.

I know all of you are pining away for Corey Locke and Krys Kolanos -- I’m not, again, going to go into the legit reasons that they’re not back -- but damn, I miss Mitch Love. He was just always doing stuff like that.

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That Mitch Love response brings us to our Beatles video of the night, “Can’t Buy Me Love.” I play that because, well, Love is gone. I also chose this song because, no matter what Khudobin asks, there just seems to be no way the Aeros can buy enough goals to win a game.

So, here are The Beatles with “Can’t Buy Me Love.”