Texas, Peoria, OKC, Chicago, San Antonio and Abbotsford are all still alive for the last three playoff spots in the West division. I still cannot fathom Peoria and San Antonio not making it after the starts they had - but one of them very likely will not make it. It is still hard for me to believe that the Aeros are going as the No. 2 seed in the Western Conference ... I just did not see that coming.
Texas can clinch with a win in Peoria tonight, but they are no lock. San Antonio, currently in 7th, can still get in by winning their last three games in regulation. There are an endless number of scenarios right now, but the most likely outcome for the Aeros is playing Texas in round 1.
The Aeros have stated publicly that Games 1 and 2, if they have home ice, will likely be on April 13 and 15 at Toyota Center. They will be well rested and ready for whoever they play, barring the extreme unforeseen.
Now to another topic. Congrats to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton (WBS) head coach John Hynes for winning the AHL head coach of the year award. He deserves the award; his team will finish with the No. 1 record in the AHL. My opinion, however, is that other coaches were more deserving. Others did more with less and several others did it against better competition.
To date, WBS played 31 of its games against abysmal competition, including Syracuse, Albany, Adirondack, Providence, Springfield, Bridgeport and Rochester. They are 25-6 in those games, and it is only that good because all of those losses (three apiece) are to Adirondack and Syracuse. Those teams have turned it on as of late, but they are still below .500.
My top three, in no particular order, are Kurt Kleinendorst of Binghamton, Mike Yeo of the Houston Aeros and David Quinn of Lake Erie. I think there are many media types and fans out there that had these three teams out of the mix even before the first puck was dropped back in October. These guys did more with less and did so despite many, many injuries with their NHL parent teams.
I will use Yeo as an example, because we work with him. Consider the Aeros record against the best division in the AHL. Against the West, the Aeros are 35-20-1-1. No other team in the West currently has more than 30 wins against the West (and there is only one of those - Milwaukee). Guess how many teams in the West division are below .500. Zero. Guess how many teams the Aeros have played this year that currently have a below .500 record? Only one; the only team they played that is NOT in the Western Conference (Syracuse).
For me, the biggest knock against Yeo is that he failed to get the Aeros to rack up big win numbers against the North Division. At 8-8-0-4. the Aeros are the only team in the West not to get a plus .500 record against that division. Think about this: SEVEN times this season, the Aeros blew two goal leads or a lead going into the third period against teams from the North division. If they do that just three times instead of seven, the Aeros are the No. 1 seed in the West, not Milwaukee.
We could not vote for Yeo, but I was real curious to see if anyone other than Hynes would win this award. It is easy to fill in the name of the coach with the best record in the league. But I seriously think you have to consider how a coach, how a team arrives at their mark. I think the Penguins, with a far easier travel schedule and many, many more games against doormats, racked up 7-8 more wins than they would have in the Western Conference.
Now for the return of the playoff picture ... I finally updated this after the game last night. It's amazing how close this thing is, and I know I will be scoreboard watching all weekend. Will you?
Please click on the image for a better view of it.
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4 comments:
Abbotsford?
Peoria came from behind scoring 2 goals in roughly the second half of the third and topped Texas 3-2. I believe the Aeros now have a lock on second place.
If I were Mill, I'd be finalizing plans to call up most of the Bakersfield Condors for Sunday's game. I don't know which will be worse, playing a Barons team that needs a win to get in or Barons players that don't have to worry about being suspended from the playoffs.
Word verification "Plato" as in - “He who commits injustice is ever made more wretched than he who suffers it”.
As a rookie head coach John Hynes found ways to win consistently while dealing with more than his fair share of call ups and injuries. What he did for the Penguins this year is clearly deserving of the award.
You can complain all you want about quality of competition but it still takes a great coach to take a revolving lineup of youngsters and consistently win.
No matter how bad your opponent is you don't get a win for showing up.
And I know Yeo is a rookie head coach in this league too and he's dealt with injuries and call ups. I'm not overlooking that. I'm also not overlooking the fact that Hynes has 10 more wins than the next closet team in the league. TEN. He's got eleven more than Hershey who should have played a similar schedule to WBS.
AiH,
I did not mean for the latter part of my post to sound like sour grapes. I think I stated rather clearly that the WBS coach deserved the award for coaching the team with the best record in the AHL.
In no way was I surprised by who won, I just wanted to let everyone know who my "finalists" were for the award (my final vote was for Quinn) - and why I did not vote for Hynes.
I think it is perfectly fair to compare teams the way I did in my post. The Penguins played in a far inferior conference - talent wise - and they played in a conference with much weaker competition.
When you play more than a third of your games against the bottom third of the barrel, of course you are going to rack up 10 more wins than everyone else.
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