Aeros Lose 5-3: A Few Comments and A Favor Request

Photo: Colton Gillies comforts Matt Hackett after Milwaukee goes up 5-3

Yes, it was a bad night for the Aeros. And yes, I do kind of kill them in the Press tomorrow because they played an awful, awful game tonight. They didn't play like the team I saw in the Peoria series. Still, I don't think anything I'm going to write will be anywhere near as bad as anything as Mike Yeo going to do to them in practice.

This game, this loss, was something he could see coming from practice.

"Again, I think that guys were feeling pretty proud of themselves, getting the split up in Milwaukee, and all of sudden we’re coming home and hey, we’re a pretty good team and we’ve had a lot of success in the playoffs," Yeo told us after the game. "And somewhere along the way we forgot we’re playing a first place team. A real quality opponent who has had a lot of success on the road."

The Aeros played really good hockey for about the first half of the first period, then I'm not sure what happened, but it was like, for the most part, a different team was on the ice. And that team that played the last 50 minutes or so that really needs to be worried about because they weren't playing very good hockey.

Not everybody mind you. Once again, there aren't enough good things that can be said about Robbie Earl's game. Jared Spurgeon was on target. I thought there was good effort from the third line. Again.

But the other lines are doing nothing. It's nice to talk about the depth of this Aeros team, and about how this Aeros team can excel because they're not dependent on Patrick O'Sullivan and the first line to do everything. But damn it, at some point, the O'Sullivan/DiSalvatore/Almond line and the Earl/Wellman/Rau line have to do something because if the Aeros are going to be dependent on Colton Gillies to get all of the goals, the team's in trouble -- nothing against Gillies, but that's the checking line.

And yes, Mike Yeo is also bothered about this. He tried to change things up a bit in the third, throwing Wellman in with DiSalvatore and O'Sullivan, but that backfired because that line got burned with some bad turnovers in the third that directly led to Milwaukee goals with minutes of the Aeros pulling within a goal.

Yeo said before this series not to expect the Peoria lineup, and he put Marco Scandella in for Jeff Penner and he put Brett Bulmer in for Matt Kassian. But he also said to expect changes between games. He's not done this yet, but that might be coming.

"We’ve had good chemistry with our guys," he said. "But at the same time, I think that we’re playing a bit of a different team in the way that they defend. We have to find a way to penetrate more to the inside. A lot of the lines have had moments where they’ve gotten something done, but too many times where we’ve had too many guys on the outside. So whether that’s just a shift in their mindset, or a shift in the personnel and we try to get some different type players playing with different guys, then we’ll look at all of those options as well."

Who knows how those changes will look. Personally, I go back to Kassian, see if he can cause some havoc inside because he's become good at that. Maybe you go back to Jeff Penner over someone like Falk, but besides that, I can't think of anybody who hasn't played in the playoffs who should be playing.

Maybe you throw a Carson McMillan into the first line -- he's played on the same line with DiSalvatore and O'Sullivan during the year and he was good. Or maybe you go back to Wellman fulltime with DiSalvatore and O'Sullivan. This isn't a knock on Cody Almond who has been good, but maybe something needs to get changed with that line. I think you leave Peters/Gillies/Ortmeyer alone.

Who knows? I'm not the coach. But I think Almond, Wellman, McMillam and Jarod Palmer -- who has also played on the one through four lines throughout the season -- are the chess pieces who get shifted about the various lines.

What I come back to, though, is that nobody thought this series would be cakewalk -- I said Aeros in six, after all. I also come back to what Jed Ortmeyer told us before the playoffs. It's not so much how you handle the game. It's how you handle the day between the games. You're not going to sweep every series, and it's in the handling of the wins and the losses that matter. The Aeros didn't handle the win on Sunday very well. Maybe they'll handle the loss better.

"It’s one game at a time," Colton Gillies told us. "Yeah, we lost. We’re going to go over that tomorrow, all of the mistakes we made. We’ll fix those, and we’ll be ready for the next game."

And now my favor request. As a reminder, the Press is giving me the playoffs to save hockey coverage and show that the people in Houston really do actually care about the Aeros. So while I know you're disgusted with the loss, I do hope you'll go over tomorrow (today/Wednesday) and read my post on the game whenever it should go up -- I've got quotes there I don't have here. Otherwise, instead of Aeros stuff next year, you'll see more crap from the new designated golden boy which, instead of being about sports, which is why he's supposed to be writing, is instead about guys in lingerie killing pygmie goats in West Virginia -- yes, that was the supposed sports content for the Press yesterday.

Thanks, and until Thursday, when hopefully the result will be much better.