Last Night's Loss (In Some Photos)

First, here's my story in the Press on the playoffs slip slidin' away. Go click and leave a few comments if you want.

Now, what's that they say, a picture is worth a thousand words? Well, here's about six or seven thousands words for you to look at from last night. These first three photos are from Lake Erie's first goal. It's hard to blame Hackett here. He follows the puck, as, it appears, do the Aeros, ignoring the Lake Erie shooters at the net. It's not until the third photo that we actually see Tyler Cuma anywhere near the puck, and by then, it's way too late.

I chose this photo below to illustrate one of the things Hackett had to deal with the entire night -- being screened, this time by his own team, and not being able to see a damn thing happening with the puck.

As for these final three photos, you can once again see him being screened by a Lake Erie player -- I call it putting the ass to his face. Heather suggested he should've used a few poke checks and shoves, I told her he did and that this was the best separation he could get it. The amazing thing, to me, is that he still blocks the shot though it had to be have been nearly impossible for him to see anything that was happening.

The Aeros have a lot of problems heading into these last seven games, but I think we can all safely agree that the goal tending isn't one of those problems. Whether it's been Joe Fallon, Scott Greenham, or Matt Hackett, the goalies have more than done their jobs. The defense, offense, and special teams, however, seem to have disappeared.

Photos from the 1-0 Win over San Antonio

There was only one goal scored in tonight's 1-0 Aeros win. And that goal was the seventh of the season for Justin Fontaine. (Quick note: the Aeros last won 1-0 on February 13, 2010, a 1-0 overtime win over Grand Rapids).

I thought you would like some photos. I had the camera on Jon DiSalvatore, so what you get is him moving in for a rebound should there be one, his reaction to the goal, then two photos of Fontaine skating for the bench to be congratulated by those guys there.

Pictures Are Worth A Thousand Words

What's that they say, pictures are worth a thousand words? Well, I'll throw up some words and some quotes later. But I think the photos say all that there really is to say.

Some Game Five Photos and Additional Notes

For those of you who decided not to give your hard-earned bucks to AHL Live so that it could fail for you again, I thought I would share some photos from the game. But first, a few notes.

1. You'll be pleased to note that some Binghamton fans consider the Aeros to be the dirtiest team they've played this year. Good for them, because if that's what they think, they wouldn't have been able to handle some of the teams the Aeros have handled this year. And I'm sure that if you ask many of the Aeros fans, they're not going to want to say too many nice things about the Senators style of play.

2. There was a comment below on Pascal Morency and the Clear Day Roster. And no, Morency was not on the Clear Day Roster. But AHL rules allow players not on the Clear Day Roster to play in the playoffs in case of an emergency situation, such as the injury to Cody Almond. Morency has been with the team since the playoffs started, and he's been skating with the Black Aces.

3. If Jared Spurgeon can't play on Tuesday, I'd expect his replacement to be Jeff Penner, who played during the Peroia series because of the injury to Marco Scandella. I haven't heard any updates on Almond or Spurgeon. I'll go out to to the skate tomorrow to see if I can get any information, but I doubt I'll get anything definitive.

4. Now for the photos....


This is Jared Spurgeon on the ice as Jody Green works on him. And it was at this point that the arena was screaming out taunts at Matt Hackett.


This is a photo of the Binghamton mascot being lowered from the arena rafters. The picture doesn't do the absurdity of this event justice because the mascot primarily just hangs there as he's lowered -- I got him moving his arms -- and it kind of looks like he's being lynched.


Here is JM Daoust getting the first goal of the game for the Aeros. He just did his standard hang around the net and be a pest thing.


Here's Daoust's second goal. You can't really see it in this photo, but I thought Robbie Earl deserved an assist because just before this it was like Earl and the goalie were wearing the same uniform, so smothered and screened did Earl have him.


And here's Hackett making a heroic effort to stop a shot. He can't quite stop it though, as Binghamton scores its third goal.

Notes, Quotes, Observations, And End Game Controversies -- A Fun Night In Houston

Sorry folks, this is going to be quick. They're doing electrical work at my apartment complex tomorrow and shutting off the power at 9:00 a.m., so I've got to get some sleep. But I wanted to throw out a few things, and answer some questions.

1. Some of you have wondered why Hamilton got so upset over the DiSalvatore game-winner, besides it being the game-winner. Hamilton was arguing that Drew MacIntyre was in control of the puck, so the whistle should have been called. This is an issue we've seen all series with the officials taking forever to blow the whistle, allowing players to play whack the goalie.

I was down at the other corner, but I checked my photos of the sequence. In most of them, I can't tell anything because there are too many players blocking my view of MacIntyre, but I do have this one photo below. And if you look closely under MacIntyre's pads -- click on the photo to enlarge it -- you'll see that the puck is free. This is just a split second before the goal is called.


Here's what Jon DiSalvatore had to say about the play: "The puck was thrown at the net. It was laying there between his pads. I think he may have thought he had it covered, so throw everything at him and see what happens. Sometimes that’s the way you’ve got to get it through that guy."

2. This next sequence of photos involves the very end of the game where we had the scrum in front of Matt Hackett and where it looked like some of the Hamilton players were going to kill the officials. The issue here, as I understand it, was that the Hamilton players felt one of the Aeros, and I heard Justin Falk's name, covered the puck with his hand while in the crease, thus there should have been a penalty shot called.

This happened just in front of me, so I checked my photos. If you look closely, you'll see the puck right below the "4" of Falk's sweater. You can't see the puck in the final photo as it appears that he's rolled over on it.

Three things. If you look at the photos, it appears that Terry Koharski is looking right at the puck and at Falk. Second, from these angles, I don't see how Falk could have grabbed hold of the puck. Third, in the final photo it looks as if Warren Peters was making a grab for the puck, but that's the best shot I have as chaos ensues in the photos I have after that.






3. We get lots of access to these guys during the season, so we get to know them. And as much as advancing to the Calder Cup means to all of these guys, I think it means more to Jon DiSalvatore than it does anybody. He's spoken in the past about never winning a playoff series, and about how special this group of players is, and how much he wanted this. And now he's got it.

"You can go around the league and find maybe more talented teams than our team, just on paper," he said after the game. "But character-wise, top to bottom, the depth that’s on our team, the coaching staff. Everything has just come together so nicely and we’ve grown so much. Guys have brought into the process of maturing as people and as athletes. You see that all come together in 20 minutes of a hockey game. Everything that we battle through to persevere and come out. That’s what makes it so special. We put in all that extra time throughout the year just for a moment like that. And that’s why this team’s so special."

4. This couldn't have been an easy night for Casey Wellman. Wellman's struggled throughout out the playoffs, and tonight he was on the fourth line after having started the playoffs against Peoria on the top line. So playing on that fourth line, Wellman went out and had his best game of the playoffs, scoring the second and third goals of the game.

"This series has been a struggle," Wellman told us. "Obviously we went up three games, and lost three in a row. And personally, it’s been kind of a struggle for me. But these are the games you dream about, game sevens, and I’m glad I was able to step up for our team."

5. And we asked Mike Yeo about the move, and Yeo responded: "It’s a response by him. It’s a tremendous response, and that’s what you’re looking for, and that’s how we got to this point, really. I give Casey huge credit for the way he responded tonight…."

6. And let's hear it for you fans who were attendance. That was the loudest I've heard Toyota Center in years. There were 6,000-plus in attendance, and your presence was felt every moment. You have no idea how much it meant to the players, and how they fed off of it. That's what home ice advantage is all about.

"We haven’t been a team to go to center ice and salute the crowd before. I think it’s a great tradition, and it’s something that I would like to see," Yeo said. "But the guys thought it was appropriate tonight because that crowd was unbelievable. I thought that just the game, the excitement value of it, just the energy that the crowd brought to the game and the life that they brought to our players was phenomenal."

That's it. I'm out of here. I'll try to post a link to the mothership story whenever it goes up, providing I can find some power and a wireless connection somewhere. Also, some bad news. I'm not going to be at games one and two because of previous vacation plans, so there won't be any photos. Maybe Heather will nice enough to bring out the pen and paper and do us some stick figure drawings, though I'm sure all of her attention will be focused on Mr. Barry Brust. But the good news is that I will be in Binghamton for games four and five.

Goodnight everybody. It's been an incredible evening.

View From The Press Box -- Aeros Take Down Hamilton

Wow. Just wow. Right? What else is there to say, but Wow.

The Aeros did it. They defeated Hamilton 4-3 in a tough game that saw both teams playing some of their best hockey of the series. They were both playing desperate, neither wanting to go home, and in the end, it was the Aeros who were most desperate as Jon DiSalvatore fought like a mad man to shove a puck past Drew MacIntyre with 1:13 left in the game.

I'll try to post some quotes later. And Andrew said he would try to throw some stuff up, and I encourage you to read our bits in the Chronicle and the Press and Pro Hockey News.

But I just wanted to get some stuff up so you'll have a place to leave comments. And I thought you would want to see some photos. But I didn't think you'd care about action photos, I thought you would be interested in these photos from the game ending, and the handshake, and the players coming out to salute the 6,000-plus who made the Toyota Center a really loud place, and finally, this photo of JM Daoust and Matt Hackett, skating off the ice.

The Aeros now play Binghamton and former Aeros Barry Brust and Corey Locke for the Calder Cup, and the action starts this weekend in Houston. Game one is Friday and game two is Saturday. Game three is in Binghamton next Wednesday, as are games four and five, which will be played on Friday, June 3 and Saturday, June 4. If they're needed, games six and seven will be in Houston on Tuesday, June 7 and Thursday, June 9.

And once again, wow. Just wow.

Aeros 2-1 -- Photos of Matt Hackett

The Aeros got the 2-1 win over Hamilton tonight in a game in which they dominated the first 30 minutes or so, then had a let up that neither Mike Yeo or the team was too happy about in the second half.

But Matt Hackett stood tall tonight, stopping 38 of 39 shots, including 20 of 21 third period Hamilton shots -- Hamilton didn't score until there were 50 seconds remaining in the game. Admit, we've all had our worries about Matt Hackett, but if he continues playing like he did tonight, we might not have too much to worry about.

I'll post some quotes and a more in-depth story later, but until then, here are a few photos of the star of the night as the Aeros take the 1-0 lead in the Western Conference Finals.

Photos Say So Much

I've got to transcribe so I can put up a few quotes with the View From The Pressbox. Plus I've got to pack. And I'm sure Heather will post some of Chris Jerina's photos later, but I wanted to share these photos because, well...

This is the immediate aftermath of Casey Wellman scoring to put Houston up 3-2. Just look at their reactions, and just look at Robbie Earl jumping into the air as he hugs Wellman. Great stuff. Great stuff.

Aeros Win 3-2 (OT) -- The Game Winning Goal

I'll have some quotes and a story up later -- mainly because Andrew's hogging my recorder with my Robbie Earl quotes. Needless to say, the Aeros scored two goals in the final 4:22 of regulation to send the game to OT, then won, once again, in OT.

Jeremy Smith was fantastic in net for Milwaukee until it counted. And then along with the win we had Milwaukee coach Lane Lambert showing up outside the officials locker room, pounding on the door, while we were interviewing Mike Yeo. But we'll get to that later.

Meanwhile, here's Robbie Earl scoring the game winning goal.

The Game Winner (Some Blurry Photos)

That was an exciting night here at Toyota Center as the Aeros get the 3-2 OT win to even the series at 2-2. As Andrew promised below, I'll be back later with some quotes from the game star, Carson McMillan, as well as Colton Gillies and Mike Yeo.

But I thought I would share these somewhat awful photos I got of the game-winner. The first photo shows Jarod Palmer moving into position with the puck. You see the just how little space he has to work with for the pass. The second shot is just as the puck's gone in the net, though you can't really tell. The third one's really out of focus, and while I know it won't meet with the approval of Mr. Fred, or myself really, I do think you can get a nice view of the expression on Palmer's face as he's falling down. Then you get McMillan's expression as Max Noreau comes running at him. Then we have the big celebration.