From the Mailbag - Question of the week

The Aeros are red hot and have another game tonight in Rockford. A win tonight gives them that elusive fifth straight win. It's been about two years since they had a streak like that. I am sure that is on their minds, so as long as Hannu Toivonen doesn't play out of his mind, the Aeros should be able to come away with the two points.

Also, here is another question that I have been asked a lot lately. Where would the Aeros be without all the shootout/OT wins? This person pointed out that the Aeros seem to play very well in OT and questioned whether they would be in the playoff race without all those extra points.

Glad you asked!

If we go back to the pre shootout format of Wins, Losses, OT Losses and Ties, the standings wouldn't really be all that different. Some teams would flip-flop, but the top seven teams would STILL be separated by just six points. Here's how things would look:

TEAM W-L-OTL-T = Points

PEO 27-18-2-4; 60 points

SAT 26-19-2-5; 59 points

OKC 24-19-2-9; 59 points

MKE 23-13-2-11; 59 points

HOU 23-19-1-10; 57 points

TEX 23-17-3-7; 56 points

CHI, 22-22-2-8; 54 points

RFD 17-21-2-7; 43 points

As you can see, things are just as tight. But the Aeros fall from 11 over .500 to just four. They would have a crap load of ties, so fans have to be thankful for DiSalvatore, Almond, Earl and even Anton, who all perform well above average in the tie-breaker round.