Round 3, Game #4: Aeros vs. Moose: Nobody Told Me

After Wednesday morning’s skate, Tony Hrkac said that the team had to avoid making mistakes, they had to play smart, and that they had to focus on just winning this one game. Most importantly, he said, they needed to at least be tied at the end of the first period.

Things looked good for the Aeros (and for Hrkac’s prediction) when Corey Locke knocked in a rebound past Manitoba’s Cory Schneider at 1:26 of the first to put the Aeros up 1-0. But then the mistakes and dumb play began and the Moose got two goals – including another short-handed goal on the penalty kill – to grab the 2-1 lead after one period.

But the thing about the Aeros is that they just don’t quit. They came out in the second and tied the game at two-all when Corey Locke fired a cross-ice pass to John Lammers who then found Robbie Earl coming up the middle of the ice, and Earl buried the puck in the net at 13:58 of the second. Then the team got stupid again, and allowed Manitoba to score 25 seconds into the third period to take the 3-2 lead.

Enter Matt Beaudoin and Tony Hrkac.

Beaudoin took a pass from Benoit Pouliot at 13:31 of the third and slapped the puck past Schneider to tie the game at three. And seconds later, at 14:29, Beaudoin made a great play under the net to find a streaking Hrkac who tipped the puck past Scheinder to put the Aeros up 4-3.

“I got a good pass from Pouliot right outside their blue line, and I knew I had a winger going,” Hrkac said, “so I wanted to get the shot on the net for the rebound, and [Beaudoin] got the rebound, and from my angle I thought he put it in. But it went behind the net, and I just went straight for the net and he saw me and threw it out to me and I put it in the net.”

But the Aeros don’t do things the easy way. Anton Khudobin found himself badly out of position at 17:21 and Mario Bliznak got the wraparound to tie the game at four and send the game to overtime.

It was during the intermission leading to overtime that word filtered up to the press box that Khudobin had gotten injured in the third period and that Nolan Schaefer would be coming out to take over at goal.

“I just didn’t want to let the team down,” Schaefer said. “I wanted to get in there and give them the chance to win, and I didn’t even have to do that.”

He didn’t have to do that because the Aeros came out on the attack in the overtime and at 2:01, Matt Beaudoin scored his second goal of the night (and got his fourth point) to give Houston the 5-4 lead and to keep them alive in this best of seven series with the Manitoba Moose.

“Tonight we got our bounces,” Beaudoin said after the game.

But to stand a chance at winning this series, the Aeros are going to have to keep getting the bounces. And the next chance to get the bounces will come on Friday night as the Aeros and Moose go at it in Game Five from Toyota Center.

SOME MISCELLANEOUS GAME NOTES:

It's going to take a bit of a miracle for the Aeros to win this series. In the entire of the AHL, only two teams have ever come back from 0-3 deficits to win a series. Those teams were the 1960 Rochester Americans and the 1989 Adirondack Red Wings.

Tony Hrkac says that in this instance, the cliche has to win out, meaning that the Aeros can't focus on winning three games. They just have to focus on the next game and the next period. "The next game is the biggest game of the year. If we lose we’re done," he says. "But we’ve got to go out there one period at a time and hopefully get the next goal. We need to build off this win. It’s a big win for us. They’re a good team. They’re not going to be rattled."

********************
Corey Locke's first period goal tied the team record for playoff goals in one season with 11, tying Mark Freer who also scored 11 in 1999. Locke's 20 total points (11-9=20) is second all-time for playoff points in one season. He is behind only Freer who had 23 points in the 1999 season. Locke is also the AHL's points leader for this Calder Cup race.

Matt Beaudoin's four points (2-2=4) tied the Aeros' all-time playoff record. This has happened twice before, the last time being in 2001 when Shawn Carter got a goal and three assists.

"I think it was his best game of the year for us," Kevin Constantine said. "He’s been a real nice addition to our power play, but tonight he was also a really good five-on-five player, he did a little of both. It was his best game. It was good to see."

*******************
The Anton Khudobin injury was rather surprising news to those of us in the press box. It was also, it appears, rather surprising news to Constantine and the rest of the coaching staff.

"At some point in the third, I don’t know when," Constantine answered when asked when the injury occurred. "It was during the third, he did play the end of the third injured. It was something the coaching staff didn’t even really know about. But it was brought to our attention that he was hurt, so we had no choice but to put Schaefer in at the end of the game."

And while we're on the subject of goalies, it should be noted that this was the first time that Cory Schneider's ever allowed more than four goals in a playoff game for his career.

"The stat was that prior to this game he’d given up six goals in the third and we had three of them," Hrkac said. "So we knew were good in the third period. We knew we could get to them in the third, and we did that and we got them in overtime."

********************
And I've got a note for Booker, or whatever the hell his name is. Hey, moron, when the goalie's in the net and action is about to start back up again, don't go shouting out his frigging name and trying to grab his attention. As hard as it might be for you to believe, Anton Khudobin's got more important things to focus on that your inane activities.

********************
And to play us out tonight, I thought I would do something a little different and play a song for the Moose. So to help you get over the loss of your 10-game post season winning streak, here's John Lennon with "Nobody Told Me."

Round 3, Game 4: Talk to the Hand, Manitoba

So, I just wrote my PHN piece which I'll link up in the media round-up tomorrow, but I'm done talking about goals and assists and quotes from players and coaches, because that's not the stuff of hockey that fires me up.

It's stuff like Khudobin playing through some manner of injury in the third period and Schaefer coming in cold in the biggest period of hockey all season.

It's the Beaudoin story. A rookie who's gone from "who?" to earning an AHL contract to now being second in playoff scoring in the AHL. Guess who's gonna turn some heads this summer as a free agent if the Wild doesn't lock him down? And he's done all this with only 10 PIM in the playoffs. You listening, Locke, Pouliot, and Kolanos? Kid keeps a cool head, works his ass off, and never gives up on a puck. Plus he grows a damn fine playoff beard.

It's wondering what's next for this team. Amazement that they can really just look at this shift by shift, game by game, knowing in the back of their minds that they're looking at a pretty darn steep climb to get where they want to go. That every morning skate could be their last together.

Plus, I wonder how much those 5 goals rattled Schneider. I asked KC about it tonight and he gave the PC answer of No, he's pro, etc etc. But I can't help but think, after not letting in more than 3 goals in ANY AHL playoff game, including last season, 5 goals sticks in his craw a bit.

Does this motivate him? Does this motivate his defense?

I think it does. Unlike Milwaukee, who were balanced more like the Aeros in terms of personnel and level of experience, Manitoba has LOTS of guys who have won or played for championships at various levels and know what it takes to push through and bounce back against adversity. These guys aren't going to choke like Milwaukee did in Game 7. The Aeros will have to choke them all on their own.

I was all prepared to write my big "First Look at Next Year's Aeros" post tomorrow. I hope you don't mind waiting for it a few more days. :)

T3I.info's "View from the Press Box"

John Royal and Andrew Ferraro discuss the Aeros' Game 4 win over Manitoba Wednesday night.
Thanks again Heather for being our videographer!

Chronicle's Anna-Megan Raley discusses game with the Aeros

The Chronicle's video reporter, Anna-Megan Raley, talked to Wednesday's hero Matt Beaudoin, Tony Hrkac and Kevin Constantine after the game:

On the Ice with Andrew Ferraro

Here is the post game video we did for the Houston Chronicle Wednesday night:

Round 3, Game #4 -- Aeros vs. Moose -- Photos

Nothing but goals tonight ...

Here is the Corey Locke goal as it goes past Schneider
Here is a series showing the Robbie Earl goal.

This is the first Matt Beaudoin goal.

And finally, the Matt Beaudoin game winner in OT.

All Photos:Fred Trask

Round 3, Game #4: Aeros vs. Manitoba, Some Quick Notes

Sorry for the delay. It's taking us a little extra time to film the video segment -- and Andrew will be posting that in a bit. And I've still got a post for the mothership to write, but...

The Aeros won 5-4 in overtime. Who saw that coming? It was the Matt Beaudoin show tonight, as he was in on four of the five goals with two goals and two assists. Tony Hrkac and Corey Locke also had nice games.

We're not sure what the injury to Anton Khudobin is, though I did see him in the trainer's room after the game. Kevin Constantine told us that Khudobin injured himself sometime in the third, but the coaches weren't even aware of it at the time and didn't know about it until the intermission, at which point, he said, they had no choice but to go with Nolan Schaefer for the overtime.

There'll be more to come later, but I just thought I would go ahead and throw that information out. Make sure to come back in a bit because Andrew will be posting video and all of us will have more informative posts to come.

More On The Strange Case of the Phoenix Coyotes, Part The Continued

And in my quest to bore you out of your mind with the Phoenix Coyotes situation -- which I find fascinating because, well I'm a lawyer and I don't like Gary Bettman -- I bring you some more info on what actually happened yesterday.

According to the Canadian media, who were actually present at the hearing, the judge appeared to side with Jerry Moyes on the whole control of the team issue and doesn't quite think the NHL is being quite truthful regarding Moyes signing a proxy to surrender control of the team -- I know, the NHL lying is a rather shocking development. That said, the judge still refused to rule on the matter and punted it over to a mediator to try and get the parties to settle the matter.

The mediator has until May 27 to get this matter settled, at which point the parties will return to the bankruptcy court. At that point, it's expected that, if the mediator hasn't gotten a settlement in this matter, then the judge will actually make a ruling as to who has operating control of the franchise. And even scarier for the NHL is that the judge made it clear yesterday that he doesn't care about their internal franchise relocation rules and that he considers the franchise to be a movable asset if it turns out that relocation is the best method of increasing franchise value and raising money for the creditors.

But that doesn't necessarily mean that Jim Balsillie gets the franchise should that occur. If the judge so rules, he probably put the franchise up for auction and accept the highest bid. Balsillie's bid is the highest, but if there's a chance of moving the team out of Phoenix, then there's no telling what kind of bids might actually come flooding in. But -- and again but -- the judge probably won't even hold hearings on the whole relocation aspect until the end of June.

So there are two issues to be decided: control of the team, and whether the team can be moved without NHL approval. The judge indicated in arguments yesterday that he thought the NHL was a loser on both points, but until there are hearings and actual rulings, no one knows for sure what the judge will do, and who knows, maybe all of that will force the NHL to listen to some logic about the viability of Phoenix.

But another problem is that the Judge might not even get around to ruling on these issues for several months, which might end up meaning that, by default, the Coyotes are forced to play in Phoenix next season.

Observations From The Morning Skate -- The Cliche Edition (with numbers)

Excuse the lateness of this posting, but I was busy with some breaking news for the mothership. That said, I’ll just combine the observations from the morning skate with inside the numbers for just one post.

So…

You’ve already seen the big news from the Morning Skate about Anton Khudobin getting the start tonight at goal for Houston. Kevin Constantine said it was nothing that Nolan Schaefer did wrong, but more that Khudobin is the guy who has gotten the wins for the team in the playoffs.

“We’re going back to Anton. He’ll start tonight,” Constantine said. “We really, with Anton in the playoffs, didn’t have a lot of choices because the other goalies were hurt. Then you get back to where Nolan and Barry are healthy and you start to have choices and the decisions get harder. We’d gone into our last game having won only one of our last five, so we thought we would try something so we tried Nolan. He didn’t play a bad game. He didn’t make some big saves in some situations where we needed big saves, but at the same time we gave up really, really high quality chances that you wouldn’t look at those as goalie mistakes but as we gave up too big a chances. We don’t think he played bad. At the same time, Anton seems to be the guy who’s gotten wins in the playoffs for us, so we’re going back to him.”

As for this being the ultimate do-or-die game for the Aeros, Tony Hrkac, while apologizing, went with the clichés. “You take it period by period,” he said. “I know it’s all of the old clichés, shift by shift, but our backs are against the wall so we have to take it like that. That’s got to be our mentality. We’ve got to play our game. Play hard. Play smart. We really have to do things right because they’re a good team. Any mistakes and we’re done.”

Constantine isn’t even looking at it as one game at a time or just winning a period. To him, none of that matters. “When you start worrying about wins and losses you’re way ahead of yourself,” he said. “You’ve got to get into the process that turns you into a winner and focus on that.”

And the process is one of learning from game to game and applying the good things from the last game to the next game while cutting back on the bad things. “All we’ve talked about is how have the first three games gone,” he said. “What did we learn from the first three games, how did Game Three go as opposed to Game Two, and what did we learn from Game Three. All of those things trying to prepare us to do our best job in Game Four. That’s all we’ve talked about.”

As for the guys during the skate, they looked loose. They didn’t appear uptight, and they didn’t appear worried about tonight’s game. They worked on their shots. Khudobin and Schaefer worked on blocks and rebounds.

Danny Irmen says he’s trying not to focus on Manitoba: “They’re an experienced team, and a lot of them have been here before. We’ve just got to worry about ourselves and not worry about them. We’ve got to focus on what we’ve got to do right.”

As to the actual game, Hrkac says it all comes down to the first period: ‘We have to have a good first period. Tie it at least.”

I think Mr. Hrkac has been looking at the numbers, because, while kind of bleak, the numbers speak truth. Manitoba is 9-0 when it scores first, and it is 7-0 when it has the lead after the first period. The Aeros are 1-7 when they let the other team score first, and they are a miserable 0-8 when trailing after the first. But if the Aeros can get the lead or a tie at the end of the first, they’re 8-1.

So forget all of the other numbers. The numbers at the end of the first period are all that matters. If Houston can get on the board first and at least hold it to a tie, then they just might be able to pull out at least one game of the series. Otherwise, it’s all over.

Khudobin in goal tonight

Our very own John Royal is up at morning skate and reports that The General himself says Anton will start between the pipes tonight.

As Andrew points out, he has brought the noise in the last two elimination games, so I see the logic. I guess we'll see how that logic pans out and whether Anton starts AND finishes.