I like short-term goals, and Noreau (whose goal was an absolute beauty) said the Aeros need to start stringing together a few wins, and now is the perfect time to do it.
John will write more later about Wednesday game, but here are a few instant observations:
The Aeros looked a bit sluggish to start, but hey, they played their fourth game in less than a week.
Dubielewicz didn't allow any goals as the Aeros were outshot 11-10 in the first 20 minutes.
The Aeros out-shot the Rampage 26-13 in the next 40 minutes.
Colton Gillies scored his first goal since opening night.
Jon Disalvatore and Justin Falk did a great job of getting the puck to Nathan Smith, who then fed a wide-open Gillies for the east 1-0 lead.
Josh Tordjman played his best game of the year against the Aeros Wednesday night.
Jeff Smith is way too predictable.
Someone needs to tell Jeff Smith that he is way too predictable.
For those of you who don't get out Twitter feed -- Forecheck, I'm talking to you -- here's some roster news. Clayton Stoner is on his way to Minnesota. Anton Khudobin and Jaime Sifers are on their way back here. What this means for Barry Brust I have no idea. Maybe Heather can give us some info about that later.
I know it's not an official statistic but would you believe the Aeros are on a 2-game Entertaining Hockey streak?
The parts of the game I saw tonight (at either end of my attempt to go play hockey, which was thwarted by my dead vehicle) were good stuff.
Texas had the only first period tally from former Aero Max Fortunus.
In the second, Duncan Milroy found his way back onto the scoresheet with the first Aeros goal from Max Noreau and Clayton Stoner on a power play opportunity. Then Francis Wathier put the Stars ahead 2-1 with his 8th goal of the season.
Chad Rau knotted it up just 3 minutes later with help from JM Daoust and Stoner (again).
The teams went into the third with a 2-2 tie and plenty of anticipation as to which team would get the upper hand in the final frame.
Jon DiSalvatore put that question to bed with an unassisted goal midway through the third that I hear was really pretty, but I was on the phone with my car-knowledgeable friend trying to see when he can come take a look at my girl.
So, let's just say, "OMG, it was a BEAUTY" and maybe someone who saw it can say what really happened in the comments. (Andrew has a better accouting here in his Chronicle article.)
And then Wathier went off for a cross-checking call, leaving Daoust to work his magic and get his second point of the night when he put an easy shot off a quick cross-ice feed from Andy Hilbert past our old friend Matt Climie.
With 2 minutes left, Milroy got a call for hooking and the Stars pulled Climie to get a 6 on 4 power play and try to get traction on the 2 goal deficit.
But Rau thwarted the comeback attempt, launching the puck up the ice and right into the Stars twine for an empty net, short handed goal.
The boys head home with a whopping 5-2 victory, and hopefully they do it without another blown tire like the one that saw them get into Cedar Park an hour late, according to Joe O'Donnell.
Lots of home ice hockey this week with games Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday. And have I mentioned that Brusty is back? Yeah, Brusty is back, the Aeros have scored 9 goals in their last two games, and it's cold outside. If that doesn't scream "COME WATCH HOCKEY!" I dunno what does. See you tomorrow, even if I have to walk to get there.
-------------------------
Just a side note. No disrespect to our media colleagues in Austin, but I think they need a little lesson on what the three stars means.
The stars tonight were:
Max Fortunus (Stars - 1 goal)
Francis Wathier (Stars - 1 goal)
Clayton Stoner (Aeros - 2 assists)
Now, the spirit of the three stars, which is an ultimately-meaningless but deeply entrenched hockey tradition, is that the stars go to the best players in the game. Not the best players for the home team, and then fill in with a random player from the visiting team.
Here's a great Wiki page on the Three Stars. It's worth a read even if you know a lot about hockey, but definitely if you don't.
What's extra super silly about this particular game is that the right answer was SO obvious. Even I, who gets carried away with goalies and shiny things and nice hair and always has a hard time figuring out the three stars, think it's obvious.
Rau with two goals
Daoust with a goal and an assist
Stoner with two assists
Neither goalie was spectacular; Climie only saw 18 shots and Dubie only saw 14, so clearly, the above should have been the three stars. That's not even being a homer. That's just Three Star Selection 101, Day 1, Page 1 right there. The mind boggles, my friends.
For the last eight years, there haven't been too many days that I haven't thought about hockey.
During the season, it's easy. During the playoffs, it's automatic. During the off-season, I am always looking for news that affects the team(s) that I follow as a fan and cover as a writer.
But today, my 7-month old Ellie Marie is having open heart surgery. She has Tetralogy of Fallot (with pulmonary atresia) and is getting that fixed by one of the best heart surgeons on this planet.
Today, I don't care which Minnesota goalie has the flu.And I don't care how average the Aeros are at home.And I don't care how the Red Wings have lost one player, after another, after another, after another.
Saying good-bye in the holding area was one of the hardest things I have ever done. Not because I won't see her again, but because, when you are a father, you don't care about anything more than the safety and well-being of your children.
Today I don't really have a whole lot of control over that. All I can do is pray and lean on the unbelievable amount of support that I have gotten from my wife, my family, my friends and many co-workers that I love and cherish.
Tonight, the Aeros will take the ice in Cedar Park. But before they do, before you start thinking about hockey today ... think about Ellie. Keep her in your thoughts and prayers and the doctors that are, at the very moment, doing something that, to me, was unthinkable last Thanksgiving.
I can't wait to bring Ellie Marie to her first hockey game. When I brought Caden (my five-year old son) to his first game, that was one of the happiest days of my life. I absolutely cannot wait to do that with my baby girl.
Well, that was nice to see a win and a relatively entertaining game to boot.
I thought the guys looked a little leaden of foot when they first came out, but Daoust's very early goal seemed to spark them. Cloutier looked like he had molasses in his crease (down in the butterfly and just stuck there) on that one and I thought, "Okay, they have a chance tonight."
For those who don't know, Cloutier, 33, has been out of hockey for almost the last 2 years after requiring surgery on both his hips and then having a long recovery and then basically need to find a team who a) had a need and b) was willing to gamble on a an old (*ahem*) goalie who wasn't really a world beater to start with.
But due to injuries and lacking depth at goal, the Icehogs signed him to a PTO a few weeks ago. (He got kicked out of his first game back for whacking a guy with his blocker.)
Cloutier played Saturday night in Cedar Park and then today in Houston, which I thought was interesting. It's tough to play back to back at any point as a goalie, but to be just a few weeks into your comeback after a long lapse, coming off injury, and being a little longer in the tooth... well, frankly, I don't care if the guy is Patrick Roy, you're not getting top of the line goaltending.
Not to say that the Aeros didn't earn that win and put some great shots on net, I'm just giving some context.
Add to that that the Hogs were at the end of the 3 in 3 and you're really not skating against the freshest opponent.
Not trying to rain on the parade or anything. Just, well, like I said, context.
The goal on Dubielewicz was a bit of a softie and there were a few, "OMG is he a lucky SOB" moments, BUT he was very good when he needed to be, particularly on penalty kills, where things got pretty hairy a few times.
DiSalvatore's shot was just straight up legit. I thought it was Noreau for a moment. High slot through lots of traffic, nothing but net. But Noreau's goal, Cloutier was very clearly interfered with, pulled to the side of his crease, leaving basically an open net for Noreau to launch his trademark shot into.
And then of course, Irmen got the empty netter to seal the deal in the final minute of play.
I don't know about you guys, but it felt a little surreal to both see a bunch of pucks go in the net AND to enjoy the game. The nutritious shredded wheat side of me says, "Even a blind squirrel sometimes finds a nut." But the hockey fan in me hopes that maybe this will be a springboard for confidence and continued success.
With plenty of home games coming up, we'll all get to find out together before the year is out.
No drawing tonight. I've gotta get home and get ready for my own game and stoppin' those pucks. :)
The last time the Houston Aeros played a home game on Teddy Bear night, they scored five goals on five shots within a matter of minutes in the second period. But that was last season when they had some offensive talent. This year, not so much.
The 5110 people who attended the game, luckily, got to throw their stuffed animals out on the ice toward the end of the second period. But that was about all that they got to as the Aeros lost 2-1 in an effort that had me longing for the futility of the Houston Texans.
Peoria’s Tyson Strachan scored at 4:45 of the first period on a play initially set up by Mitch Love down in the Peoria end of the ice. The Aeros scored on a five-on-three power play at 17:30 of the second when Andy Hilbert converted the rebound of a Max Noreau shot for a goal. The scoring action ended at 4:30 of the third when Peoria’s Brett Sonne took advantage of an Aeros screen to bounce the puck past Anton Khudobin to make the score 2-1.
There’s not much else left to say. The defense was good. The guy’s hustled. I think the forwards even took a couple of shots. But they lost, at home, once again. And yet, the Aeros are frustrated. Khudobin’s frustrated that he has to play perfect hockey, and that the offense isn’t doing what the coaches are telling them to do, especially on the power play. Kevin Constantine’s frustrated by the team in the general.
The team’s record dropped to 12-12-2-1 (27 points) which is good enough for fifth place. They’re four points behind Peoria and Rockford -- who they play on Sunday. They’re two points, but many percentage points, behind Milwaukee. And they’ve dropped a total of 15 points behind Texas, and the Stars are quickly pulling away from the rest of the division.
The Aeros will give it another shot on Sunday as they take on the Rockford IceHogs at 4:05.
SOME MISCELLANEOUS GAME NOTES:
As Andrew mentioned below, we talked to Khudobin after the game, and he’s getting frustrated by having to play perfect hockey for the team to win.
“It’s kind of…it’s hard when we score just one goal,” he said afterwards. “On the power play we have to shoot more. Shoot, shoot, and shoot all the time. Because for a goalie it’s really hard, we have to…actually the coach is saying we have to have a guy in front of the goal, but [the other goalie] doesn’t have [that]. Never. Lots of screens, that’s what we need.”
I don’t know about the screens part. There always appear to be a lot of Aeros swarming the goalie and blocking his vision, it’s just that nobody ever wants to take a shot that will take advantage of anything. The team does need to shoot more, especially on the power play were they pass and pass and pass and pass and pass and pass and pass and pass and pass and…the power play’s over.
**************** The coaches have been trying to figure out what to do about the team’s inability to win games at home. Constantine said he and the assistants have been analyzing everything they can think of, but nothing seems to be working.
“We’re working hard to try to do what we can to win games at home,” Constantine said. And in a way, based on what Constantine, that could be part of the problem. He said that the team plays simpler games on the road, and that at home, they’re trying to do too much. Perhaps Constantine needs to do something to convince the Aeros they’re actually playing a road game.
**************** Cody Almond returned from the injury list, playing his first game since forever. He and Andy Hilbert -- who played in his only 11th game of the season -- showed what appeared to be some much needed life on the offensive end. But the rest of the squad didn’t appear to be able to do much of anything. Almond, Hilbert, and Khudobin were easily the team’s bright spots tonight.
I know that I was frustrated by the game. This was the first game I’ve seen in nearly three weeks. Since that time, I’ve covered several Houston Cougar football games, as well as some Houston Cougar basketball games. Normally, there’s more exciting than hockey, but after watching the Cougars run up and down football fields and basketball courts, this game was, decidedly, boring. Luckily, or not, I won’t be around for Sunday’s game as I’ll be out of town.
**************** I hate the “Kiss Cam.” I especially hate the “Kiss Cam” when they do that stupid thing and put the camera on two players from the other team. I think it’s juvenile. That said, good on Mitch Love for playing along with this stupid thing tonight. He didn’t kiss a teammate, but he kissed his glove, then patted a teammate’s helmet.
I know all of you are pining away for Corey Locke and Krys Kolanos -- I’m not, again, going to go into the legit reasons that they’re not back -- but damn, I miss Mitch Love. He was just always doing stuff like that.
**************** That Mitch Love response brings us to our Beatles video of the night, “Can’t Buy Me Love.” I play that because, well, Love is gone. I also chose this song because, no matter what Khudobin asks, there just seems to be no way the Aeros can buy enough goals to win a game.
So, here are The Beatles with “Can’t Buy Me Love.”
How long do you have to beat a dead horse until you get glue? Because the Aeros horse is getting a little sticky.
Bottom line, and we've said it, you've said it, a bunch of times by now: This team is hopeless at getting the puck in the net. And it hurts to say because they work their butts off and you want to give them credit for it.
But eventually you see so many missed opportunities that you start to sit back in your seat, even when the effort is there and the shots on goal are there, because you know... you just KNOW... nothing's going in the net.
And you're proven right again and again. And suddenly, the most exciting game in the world is about as much fun as watching the Zambonis resurface the ice.
I don't even feel, 27 games into the 80 game season, that I'm going out on a limb by saying that if Jim Mill doesn't fortify this team with someone who can spark them, they will not make the playoffs.
If I may make a suggestion: Teams are in fact hurting for goalies around the league. We do have 3 healthy, proven AHL goalies in the system (and a potential 4th playing very well for the Texas Brahmas in the CHL if there's an injury).
Howzabout unloading one of those goalies in exchange for someone who can find the inside of the net with some regularity?
I know, it's crazy talk, but so is trying to satisfy and build a fan base playing this kind of hockey. Pick your poison.
------- All that said, it was great to see Cody Almond back on the ice, and he didn't miss a beat from where he left off. I think he's going to be a really valuable guy for both this team and the Wild at some point. His return was the highlight of the evening for me.
Well, that and watching Ben Bishop stretching in his crease before each period. Sweet mother of mercy. Reminds me of this Dolly Parton song (which I'll just link to since John's the DJ).
The Aeros find new ways to lose all the time, so I was not surprised to see them pretty much tank the third period en route to a 2-1 loss at Toyota Center.
They allowed 14 shots the first two periods, and were pretty tight. Then, they were outshot 14-5 in the third period and gave up the game-winning goal on a weird rebound.
Two guys were in front of Anton, and he never saw the rebound. Game over.
John, I am sure, will expand on more of this later ... and if he doesn't, I will.
But after the game, I basically asked Anton if he was getting tired of needed to be perfect every night just to give the team a chance to win.
He agreed in the affirmative, and even pointed out things the offense could do better and a few other things they aren't doing even though they have been discussed by the coaching staff.
Now, I am not usually one that agrees with goalies calling out the offense, but in this case ... he is absolutely right. His pointers?
Shoot more, and put more bodies in front of the net.
Sounds like a plan, but right now it's a plan that the team is not able to execute. And now, the Aeros are back to .500, they are slipping further and further away from first place and they are BELOW .500 at home (6-7-1-0).
By New Years the team will have played more than half its home games. And that might be a good thing for the Aeros, who play smarter, simpler and more disciplined on the road.
Aeros face off against the Peoria Rivermen tonight at 7:35 p.m.
It's annual Teddy Bear Toss night, which is one of my favorite games of the season. Of course, I've always got the goalies in mind and I often wonder what it's like to allow that goal that kicks off the hailstorm of stuffed animals. As if the horn and red light and roaring crowd aren't enough...
Anyway, bring a bear. Toss it on the ice after the first goal. Enjoy the spectacle. Experience Ben Bishop or Hannu Toivonen's chagrin.
Of course, the operative word here is "goal." Haven't exactly had a surplus of those lately. In fact, there haven't been any for a full on WEEK because the boys have had a monster break in the schedule.
If you follow enough hockey, you know this isn't necessarily a good thing. Rest is nice. Rust is filthy. You forget after a few days off how freaking HARD it is to win the battles required to win a hockey game. Hopefully it won't take long for them to remember.
The Aeros remain without Nathan Smith, who has been an energetic force on the ice when he's been on the roster. Wild players continue to get their skulls rattled and Andrew Ebbett is now out with a concussion, so it remains to be seen when Smith will be returned to the Aeros.
I'm sure one of the boys will be on later with some stats that will make you wonder if it's really worth getting out in the cold to watch this game tonight, but come on out anyway. We'll all keep each other warm with our bears.
As far as the etiquette for a bear toss if the Aeros get shut out, apparently end of the game is the time. I'm not being pessimistic. I'm just arming you with knowledge. And with that in mind, here's an article with everything you ever wanted to know about teddy bear tosses but were afraid to ask.
Posts
