Western Conference Power Rankings

Rampage stopped just short of franchise record

Last week and going forward, the San Antonio Rampage had a decent chance to move even higher up the Western Conference Power Rankings. They had won seven in a row, and went to OKC looking to set a franchise record for most consecutive victories.

Not so fast.

They got shut out there and then went home to face Lake Erie in front of more than 16,000 fans and a pink ice surface. The Rampage were about five seconds away from another shutout, but Mike Caruso scored San Antonio's only goal of the game before the last tick of the clock.

Rampage went 0-2 last week, fall to
seventh in the power rankings. 

Now the team hits the road for its annual rodeo road trip, where, like the Aeros, they will play 11 straight away from home. The Rampage should be able to work their way back up through the pack as five of their next six opponents are struggling right around or below the .500 mark of the season.

Trust me, we have not seen the last of the Rampage this season.

Other notes

Charlotte and Toronto just keep on trucking, and the Rochester Amerks really had a good week post All-Star break. The Aeros beat Texas and Lake Erie, but could not finish off the trifecta against the struggling Milwaukee Admirals.

Not a ton of movement elsewhere in the standings, but the Texas Stars did not have a good week, and they are going to have to get things going soon if they want a third straight trip to the AHL playoffs to start their franchise.

  2011-12 AHL Western Conference Power Rankings

                              February 6, 2012 edition

PR	Team	Record	Streak	Last Wk	+/-	For the record …
1	OKC	29-11-2-3	0-1	1-1-0-0	-	First team to 30 wins
2	CLT	26-16-2-2	2-0	2-0-0-0	-	Good start to road trip
3	TOR	23-17-3-2	2-0	2-0-0-0	-	Very tough at home
4	HOU	23-12-3-9	0-1	2-1-0-0	+3	They just won’t die
5	CHI	24-16-1-3	0-1	1-1-0-0	-	Cannauton w/ 10 goals
6	PEO	24-20-2-1	2-0	2-0-0-0	+2	Best forwards in AHL
7	SAT	24-20-2-0	0-2	0-2-0-0	-3	Rodeo trips under way
8	ABB	25-16-3-0	0-1	1-2-0-0	-2	3-7 in last 10 overall
9	RCH	21-17-6-3	3-1	2-0-1-0	+2	Kassian back from BUF
10	MKE	23-19-1-1	1-0	1-1-0-0	-	Big road win at HOU Sun
11	RFD	20-22-1-4	0-1	0-1-0-0	-2	158 goals against!
12	GRR	19-18-4-4	1-0	1-1-0-0	-	Rookie Nyquist is a beast
13	HAM	20-20-1-4	0-1	1-1-0-0	+1	Needs a push NOW
14	LEM	21-22-2-2	0-1	1-0-0-1	+1	Points in three straight
15	TEX	20-22-1-2	0-4	0-2-0-0	-2	Team is better than this

Let us know what you think about these rankings! Discuss, leave a comment, and tell us what you think.

The Bonding Trip

It's no secret that I'm not much of a fan of the AHL league offices, especially when it comes to the treatement of the teams in the Western Conference. You know, those teams that actually have to get on airplanes to journey to their next arenas for games. I'm also of the opinion that the league tends to treat the Aeros and the other Texas teams like crap, mainly when it comes to scheduling. I can't for the life of me figure out why the Aeros had to turn around and play at noon the day after a night game. And it was my opinion that while the Aeros put out a good effort yesterday, they were clearly gassed while playing against a rested team.  (Apparently I'm an idiot who has no idea what he's talking about since it appears the Aeros are the one's who requested the 12:05 start yesterday.)

But at least that was a home game. The Aeros aren't going to have any home games for awhile. Their next 11 games are on the road -- four of the games are in Abbotsford. True, the Aeros have been an excellent road team this year while playing poorly at home, but still, 11 straight road games are going to be taxing for any team, even if the team plays good hockey on the road like the Aeros. (The Aeros are 23-12-3-9, 58 points on the season, but only 9-7-3-6 at home with a 14-5-0-3 road record)

We asked John Torchetti and Jon DiSalvatore about the challenges that await the team, and how the team will adjust to that many on the road. And they didn't sound too worried, not that they would tell us they worried.

"We just want to come out – we want to keep our success going." Torchetti said. "We’ve got some big challenges. We play some good teams, so we’ve got to be ready that. I just think it’s a good challenge for us as a team. It gets us some time to go bond, which is big."

DiSalvatore claims the road games are easier to handle because the player time is more regimented and there are fewer distractions, which could be partly behind their better road play.

"There’s more distractions when you’re at home than when you’re on the road," he said. "Your schedule for the most part is set with you. So guys are tuned pretty well when you’re on the road. You have an itinerary that you follow so it’s easy to kind of reign guys in; keep a little bit more of a cohesive unit when you’re on the road. You go to dinner a lot. You associate a lot. You go to movies on the off days. You’re really together way more than we ever are when we’re at home."

(As an aside, I covered a religious event featuring baseball player Josh Hamilton on Friday night. Hamilton's a drug and alcohol addict who makes a habit off falling off the wagon during the off-season. A time when he's got no schedule to follow, so he turns to his demons then. So maybe DiSalvatore has a point about the set schedules and being able to reign people in.)

As for what the team is expecting to do on the road, DiSalvatore said that they can't look ahead to what they want to accomplish on the trip.

"You’ve got to be careful when you start to look ahead too much," he said. "We’re still a team that’s trying to work on a bunch of things. I know its a little cliché, but you really do have to take it one day at a time. We’re trying to build a foundation here; a lot like any winning team that wants to make a successful playoff run is trying to do. We’ve got to take every opportunity, a chance to go on and get a great road win, character wins. We showed this weekend some more character, and we’ve got to continue to show signs like that. Really, just take it section-by-section, minute-by-minute type deal, and work with some guys who are still maturing to being first year pros, playing a lot of minutes for us."

As it stands now, the Aeros are the fourth seed in the Western Conference for playoffs. I don't believe the road trip is going to destroy any playoff chances, especially not if they keep playing good hockey on the road. But my fear is that the team returns to Houston tired and beat up and still struggling at home.

Hopefully this road trip will position them for a successful playoff run. The team that bonded during a month-long road trip and is now ready to lay waste to all that come before them.

But frankly, all things considered, I just wish the AHL would stop screwing around and treating the Aeros the way Ted Turner treated the Atlanta Braves back in the early-80s, slot fillers to fill out a schedule. The team that plays all of the 11:00 a.m. matinees because somebody has to do it -- the Aeros play two 11:00 a.m midweek games on this schedule, including tomorrow's game in Chicago. Never mind.

Oh well, until next month.

AHL Western Conference Power Rankings

From now until the end of the season, I will post a weekly power rankings column here at The Third Intermission. I only wish I had time to do both conferences, but since I will not see the East virtually at all this season, I will only do this for our Western Conference friends.

The goal is to update this every Monday before games are played that day. Now that we are through the All Star break (speaking of which, Hackett just got beat 5-hole again) I think this is a great time to start. 

I have ranked the teams this week based on their overall performance, of course, but I do favor recent success quite a bit here. For each week going forward, we'll take a look at the past week and any major transactions that may have affected the teams. 

Enjoy. 

  2011-12 AHL Western Conference Power Rankings

                              January 31, 2012 edition

Rank	Team	Record	Streak	Last	Move	For the record …
1	OKC *	29-11-2-3	6-0-0-0	N/A	N/A	Best team in the AHL
2	CHA*	26-16-2-2	0-1-0-0	N/A	N/A	Top home record in West
3	TOR *	23-17-3-2	0-2-0-0	N/A	N/A	Plus-13 goal differential
4	SAT	24-18-2-0	7-0-0-0	N/A	N/A	Never won 8 straight
5	CHI	24-16-1-3	3-0-0-0	N/A	N/A	0-for-3 in shootouts
6	ABB	25-16-3-0	0-2-0-0	N/A	N/A	17-7 road record is killer
7	HOU	21-11-3-9	0-3-1-2	N/A	N/A	11 game trip looms
8	PEO	22-20-2-1	0-1-0-0	N/A	N/A	Think Jeckyll and Hyde
9	RFD	20-21-1-4	6-0-0-1	N/A	N/A	Just traded top d-man
10	MKE	22-18-1-1	0-4-0-0	N/A	N/A	2-11 on road since 11/26
11	RCH	19-17-5-3	1-0-0-0	N/A	N/A	9-3-0-1 since Dec. 31
12	GRR	18-17-4-4	1-0-0-0	N/A	N/A	Rookie Nyquist is a beast
13	TEX	20-20-1-2	0-2-0-0	N/A	N/A	Just 9-14-0-2 vs. West
14	HAM	19-19-1-4	0-1-0-0	N/A	N/A	Absolutely no scoring
15	LEM	20-22-2-1	1-0-0-0	N/A	N/A	See above

                 * Division Leaders (and I changed CLT to CHA to appease MsConduct)

So what do you think? What do you agree with? Better yet, what don't you agree with?