Power Rankings: Fallon helps Aeros back to Top 5

If anything, doing the power rankings today made me realize that I probably had the Aeros too low last week. It takes a lot to move up or down six spots in one week, but what Joe Fallon did this week for the Aeros cannot be minimized.

Joe Fallon won all four games for the Aeros last week.
He said he lost about 7 pounds per game, too. 

He stole probably three points the Aeros did not deserve on Saturday and Sunday, and he was great when the offense was clicking on Tuesday and Friday. A perfect 4-0 week moved the Aeros all the way up to the No. 3 team in the conference and the No. 7 ranked team in the AHL overall. Obviously, because of the playoff rules, the Aeros cannot be seeded 2 or 3 if they finish behind the OKC Barons.

The Aeros magic number is down to 10, and they'd really have to fall off the wagon not to at least snatch one of the top 8 seeds for the postseason tournament.

The Aeros get some much-needed rest this week before starting a tough four-game road trip in Rockford on Friday.

As for the rest of the league, OKC is back on top. Toronto was unimpressive against the Wolves, and they really needed a weekend sweep to stay on Top. Speaking of Chicago, they are bag atop the Midwest and Charlotte has really hit the skids.

San Antonio and Lake Erie fell back, too, after bad weeks, but both of those teams are right in the middle of the playoff chase.

Don't go anywhere, fans - things are getting REAL interesting now.

2011-12 Western Conference Power Rankings
Edition 8, March 19, 2012

PR	Team	Record	Streak	Last	+/-	For the record …
1	OKC	39-17-4-5	0-1	3-0-0-1	+1	Back on top to stay
2	TOR	36-22-4-3	2-0	2-1-0-0	-1	Just 16-16 on the road this year.
3	PEO	35-26-2-1	4-0	1-0-0-0	-	O’Sullivan – 9pts in 5 gms.
4	CHI	35-24-2-3	2-0	2-1-0-0	+1	Back in control of Midwest
5	HOU	32-20-3-9	4-0	4-0-0-0	+6	Hackett re-joins from MIN
6	CLT	32-22-3-5	0-2	0-2-0-0	-2	Lost 5 of 6 overall.
7	RCH	31-23-6-3	1-0	1-1-0-0	+2	Tough loss vs. SYR Friday
8	SAT	33-26-3-1	0-3	0-2-0-0	-2	Offense has gone dark
9	ABB	33-25-3-4	0-1	1-1-0-1	-1	6 of next 7 at home
10	LEM	32-26-3-4	0-2	0-1-1-0	-3	Tough schedule will be a test
11	RFD	29-28-2-5	1-0	1-2-0-0	-1	Relishing spoiler role yet again
12	MKE	31-27-2-2	0-1	1-1-0-0	-	Running out of time
13	GRR	28-24-6-4	1-0	2-1-0-0	-	Sarcastic thank-yous to Detroit
14	HAM	27-29-2-5	0-2	1-2-0-0	-	Here’s to next year
15	TEX	27-32-2-2	0-3	0-3-0-0	-	Rookie help on the way