Aeros Swept By Heat

I didn't see either game.  All I know is the Aeros lost on Friday and Saturday to the Heat.  I know they played with 16 skaters on Friday night, and that they played with 17 skaters on Saturday.  Frankly, I wonder why they don't go all in and just play with 14 or 15 skaters.

Frankly, I'm not sure what the situation was this weekend.  Justin Fontaine was still suspended on Friday night, but Cody Almond was supposedly on his way back to the join the team, but didn't make it in in time.  But during the Wild loss on Saturday afternoon, Warren Peters got into a scrape and appears to be facing a multi-game suspension which, according to Michael Russo, has Jed Ortmeyer Chad Rau and Almond on their way back to the Wild.

C.J. Stretch has rejoined the team, but the team's still appears to be short of healthy skaters, which is kind of bugging me. This is something that John Torchetti has talked about the team being hurt by the lack of internal competition between skaters for spots on the ice -- they're literally playing every single healthy guy they have on the squad every game.

I could go off on a long rant and get bunches of people upset with me. But frankly, it's just not worth it. I'm tired -- I was covering UH sports all day. And frankly, my going off on a rant isn't going to solve anything. (And looking at the stat sheet for Saturday's loss, it appears that the Aeros are frustrated, having gotten into several fights and getting hit with several misconducts, including one after the game had ended.)

But tell you what, the comments are open. Just try not to go off on personal attacks because we won't approve those.

Vancouuuuver Means I'm One Day Closer to You

Okay, not quite the same ring to it as the old Larry Gatlin song, but true nonetheless, as the Aeros fly into Vancouver today, and bus to Abbotsford for games Friday/Saturday.

Then they get to come home for a week before a weekend in Austin (road trip?) and then not another game until the following Saturday in San Antonio (road trip?). Lots and lots of practice time for the boys.

If you haven't heard, there was a fire at their practice rink in Sugar Land. It was very well timed in that it happened about 3 days after the guys left town and is scheduled (at the moment) to be repaired and the rink re-opened next Tuesday, the day the guys would probably be hitting the ice at home again. Convenient.

Anyway, just a little update on last night's game... not a lot of love for the back of the net against Milwaukee, who blanked the Aeros 3-0, though the third goal was an empty netter (short handed, though, which is pretty lame).

I had a chat with Chris Jerina about the game this morning and he said the shot count and score were not reflective of the Aeros effort. Milwaukee led shots in the first two periods and the Aeros tied up the shots with a hard press in the third, but Jeremy Smith and his Goal Posts of Doom were there for all of them.

What I'm picking up on is that Hackett's found his groove again and from everything I've seen and heard, he is playing well on a consistent basis. So, as I wrote over at Hockey Wilderness today, if the reason Torchetti played him so much recently was to sort of force him back into the groove, then my hat is off to those guys for figuring it out.

I still have some reservations about some things around the Aeros goaltending but I'll save that for when/if something proves out.

In other news, the Aeros twitter has been fairly quiet since Twittergate and DiSalvator made noises like he was leaving Twitter, but he hasn't closed the account and I hope he doesn't.

As I pondered DiSalvatore's situation, the story of naked Nathan Smith came to mind. When he was the captain of the WBS Penguins, he was arrested for running down the street bare-ass and that was, naturally, ALL over the place in the media, including this ESPN story. Far worse than this thing has been.

I thought, "Sal, Nathan survived that, and I'll bet he still gets naked occasionally. He's just smarter about it now." Stick it out, man. Not in a Nathan Smith-drunk-and-naked way, of course. More in a "perseverance, this will blow over" way.

In fact, I'd just been thinking we should do a weekly round-up of funny Aeros stuff on Twitter for those who don't have it. But I guess I'll cool my jets on that idea until folks aren't walking on eggshells anymore.

Anyway, I'm tired of writing about the Aeros today so how about some pictures!

Many thanks to Chris "Streaker" Jerina for capturing these last night:

Yep. Back in the AHL. Brad "Soul Patch" Staubitz warms up for his first game with the team.

How more players don't bite their tongues off in collisions, I'll never know.
Guys + Concentration = Tongue Out. Women don't do this, AFAIK.
Can someone explain this to me?

I'll never NOT use a goalie water squirting shot if there is one available to me. Thirsty.

This just made me laugh.

More where those came from right here. Everybody say thank you to Chris for these great shots! Thank youuuuu!

The Wild MASH Unit Strikes Again

It's not bad enough that Justin Fontaine's suspended.  Or that the Aeros lost to the Admirals last night.  Now comes word that Carson McMillan's been put on the IR.  Kris Foucault's on his way back to the Aeros, but Jeff Taffe and Cody Almond are on their way to the Wild.

Quick Roster Notes

With the suspension of Justin Fontaine, the call-ups of Kris Foucault and Marco Scandella, and the addition to the team of Brad Staubitz, the Aeros have made a few roster moves that we've missed out on the last several days, so...

They signed LW Devin DiDiomete to a PTO today.  He played the previous three seasons with the Hartford Wolfpack/Connecticut Whale, and he played two games with Wilkes-Barre/Scranton this season.  He was playing with the ECHL's Chicago Express at the time he joined the Aeros.  I'm assuming he'll be attempting to help replace Fontaine and Foucault.

RW Rob Mignardi was signed to a PTO last week, right before Jed Ortmeyer rejoined the team.  Meanwhile, Harrison Reed and C.J. Stretch were released from their PTOs. 

The Aeros take on the Milwaukee Admirals tonight at 7:00 in Milwaukee, game number four of the 11 game road trip, so let's see if they can put the distractions of the past couple of days behind him and play some good hockey.

Fontaine suspended 2 games for Twitter slur

The Aeros will be without the services of Justin Fontaine for the next two games after he was suspended today by the Minnesota Wild for using a homosexual slur on Twitter Sunday night (per a report by Russo).

If you want the details of the Twitter incident, you can read about it here. I don't see much value in perpetuating it further in this space.

I feel mixed on the decision by the team. I felt like Fontaine took enough rulers to the back of the hand from followers last night that he probably learned his lesson, and I think it has more impact coming from fans than from the team (at least in terms of a "talking to"). And I felt sure those around him took notice as well, given that DiSalvatore entangled himself in it by retweeting the slur.

So, a suspension feels heavy handed to me.... BUT, I have to say, I admire the team for taking a strong stance here. They could have done the "we talked to him" thing or, worse, the "boys will be boys" thing. But they dropped the hammer pretty good there and I'm proud of them for it.

I hate to say this, but I'm not sure why DiSalvatore didn't get a game while they were at it. Retweeting it is essentially consent and if anything, El Capitan is held to a bit higher standard. But that is what it is.

What'd I'd hate to see is for the team to get their knickers in a bunch and start making a bunch of rules that handcuff the guys who do use Twitter, because generally it's been a lot of fun getting to watch them banter with each other, and by and large, their spelling and grammar might not be great but they've been entertaining and well behaved.

Oh well. Tough lesson learned for the rookie and not a fun hit for the Aeros on the ice, but a big part of development is the off-ice portion of being a professional, and this is one of those "teaching moments" for the whole room.

Is it tacky of me to embed a Foo Fighters song here? Yes? Okay fine... darnit.

Western Conference Power Rankings: Ice Cold Heat

The power rankings are out for this week, and there wasn't a tremendous amount of movement overall.

Charlotte got roughed up, Houston won back to back games at Grand Rapids, so I moved Toronto and the Aeros up and sent Charlotte to the No. 4 spot. Charlotte might be the better team, but Houston has more point and took 7 of 8 points in the season series.

With a full roster in the playoffs, I like the Aeros just a tad more than Charlotte.

Yes, it IS possible. 

The Lake Erie Monsters are rolling right now and are just three points out of a playoff spot after their impressive 3-0 performance last week. They are 8-3-1-1 in about the last month or so, and they are just one bad period (at Houston on 2/4) away from a six-game winning streak.

Chicago just keeps on trucking, and the San Antonio Rampage had an impressive week before they got bombed in Grand Rapids on Sunday.


With 26 wins and 55 points, it might be a little harsh to have the Heat down in the No. 10 spot. They're in the playoffs if that started today, but they are reeling right now. They have not had back-to-back wins in 2012, and they have not had two straight wins over playoff teams since back-to-back road wins over Oklahoma City and Houston on Nov. 19 and 20. That was a long freaking time ago.

Krys Kolanos has been out of the lineup for a bit now, but they started their slide even before he signed a two-year, two-way contract with the Flames.


As for the bottom-feeders, Rockford came back down to earth, and the Texas Stars continue to struggle. The Bulldogs played really well in a couple of losses last week, but they just keep going backwards. It will be tough for Grand Rapids, Rockford, Hamilton or Texas to get back in the race unless they go through a stretch where they win eight of 10 in regulation.

It is hard to believe that most teams have fewer than 30 games left on their schedule. Now things are starting to get real interesting.

Until next week ...

Western Conference Power Rankings
Edition 3, February 13, 2012

PR	Team	Record	Streak	Last	+/-	For the record …
1	OKC	32-12-2-3	2-0	2-0-0-0	-	Abused weak Abby last week
2	TOR	27-17-4-2	2-0	2-0-1-0	+1	Mark Owuya wins both in net
3	HOU	25-13-3-9	2-0	2-1-0-0	+1	Foucault and Scandella recalled
4	CLT	29-18-2-2	0-2	1-2-0-0	-2	Three huge road games this week
5	CHI	27-18-1-3	1-0	2-1-0-0	-	6 of next 7 games at home
6	SAT	27-21-2-0	0-1	3-1-0-0	+1	10-3 overall since Jan. 10
7	PEO	26-21-2-1	2-0	2-1-0-0	-1	Stortini should get suspended
8	RCH	22-19-6-3	0-1	1-2-0-0	+1	Too many goals against (151)
9	MKE	24-21-2-1	0-3	1-2-1-0	+1	5-12-2-0 in New Year
10	ABB	26-20-3-0	0-3	0-2-0-0	-2	Slip, slip sliding away
11	LEM	24-22-2-2	5-0	3-0-0-0	+3	Rissmiller is GWG machine
12	GRR	20-20-4-4	1-0	1-2-0-0	-	Net struggles w/ MacDonald up
13	RFD	21-24-1-4	0-1	1-2-0-0	-2	9 of next 14 on the road
14	HAM	21-23-1-4	1-0	1-3-0-0	-1	Bad week at very wrong time
15	TEX	21-24-2-2	0-2	1-2-1-0	-	4-8-1-0 since Jan. 13

Some Monday Morning Miscellaney

Just a few items for this morning...

Marco Scandella and Kris Foucault have been recalled by the Minnesota Wild and should be joining the team today, per Michael Russo...

My Houston Press story today is on Chris Clackson who is more than just a hockey player, he's the developer of an iPhone app, Grocery Time.  The Press tech guru will be reviewing the app later today -- I'll try to throw up a link for that when it publishes...(here's the review from the Press tech guru.)

With 26 games to go in the season, and with eight games left on this road trip, the Aeros sit firmly in second place of the AHL's West Division with a record of 25-13-3-9 (62 points). They're seven points behind the first place Barons and six points up on the rapidly climbing San Antonio Rampage.  At this point, the Aeros would be the fourth seed in the playoffs and host the first round series...

Have a nice Monday.

Grand in Grand Rapids

Sorry for the late report on the weekend but I didn't watch or listen to the games. Just hit refresh a million times on the score sheet in order to try and beat Joe O'Donnell with T3I's Twitter updates. :)

Also, it's been sorta nice having a bit of a life while the boys are out of town. It's just that time of the season. Resting up for a long playoff run, perhaps? At least the Wild seem to be stinking their way out of the playoffs, which means the Aeros would have a full roster.

So, if you're not a Wild fan, that's nice. If you are a Wild fan, *hugs* there there... I know. Let it out.

Anyway, Grand Rapids was good to the Aeros this weekend as they were able to come from behind Saturday night to sweep the weekend.

But let's start with Friday night, where Houston just walloped the Griffins 5-1, racking up 3 goals (Taffe, Fontaine (PP), Foucault) in the first period, and two more in the third (McIntyre, Almond).

Hackett was tremendous, stopping 38 of 39 (Aeros had 31 shots) for first star honors, and it appears to have been a somewhat chippy affair with 64 minutes of penalties between the teams, including three 10-minute misconducts.

Smarting from Friday's loss, Grand Rapids came out swinging in Saturday night's rematch, putting the Aeros in a 3-1 early in the second (Aeros goal by Scandella).

But an unassisted goal by Jed Ortmeyer midway through the second pulled the Aeros within one and the boys went into the room for the 2nd intermission knowing a good bounce here or there could tie it up.

And indeed, Foucault tied it up just a couple of minutes into the third period, and McIntyre (who fought Brendan Smith a couple of minutes before Ortmeyer's goal) scored to take the lead 6 minutes later.

But with goalie Tom McCollum pulled for the extra attacker, the Griffins tied it up with 46 seconds remaining, and it looked like OT was inevitable.

Jon DiSalvatore had other ideas, and with just 26 seconds left in regulation, he put one in the back of the net to secure the win. 

Not a single goal in Saturday game came from special teams, partly because there were only 7 PP opportunities between the two teams. Still unusual to see 9 goals on the board and not a single one on the power play.

As you may have seen by now, Brad Staubitz was waived by the Wild, has cleared waivers and been assigned to Houston. He did not play in last night's game, however.

The team heads to Milwaukee now for a Valentine's Day match-up on Tuesday and hopefully the scoring confidence of 10 goals in 2 games carries with them for a while, because I wouldn't expect the goals to come as easily for the rest of the road trip.

Enjoy what remains of your weekend!

Updated: Warrioring on and some light reading on your Aeros goalies

Happy Friday, y'all!

As you probably know, Aeros are in beautiful (I guess?) Grand Rapids today for a couple of back-to-back tilts against the Griffins.

The good news is that their best goaltender, Joey MacDonald, is up with Detroit while Jimmy Howard's broken pinkie finger heals up. And Grand Rapids as a whole isn't setting the world on fire, so these are 4 points perfectly within the Aeros reach if they get after it like we know they can.

In other news, the Aeros have signed RW Rob Mignardi to a PTO (@mignasty10). He's a rookie with 23 games up in Manchester with the Monarchs. 3 points and 18 PIM in those 23 games so set your expectations accordingly.

Now, the release about this signing hasn't come out and one site is showing him as going to Ontario, but the league transactions show him going to Houston. So, take that news with a grain of salt until it's official. But Joe hinted yesterday that further help was on the way, along with Jed Ortmeyer, so I have to assume it's Mignardi. (NOTE from John: the Aeros have Mignardi listed on the website roster.)

Also this:

hockey weather here in GR #needmyscarf
— rob mignardi (@mignasty10) February 10, 2012

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Finally, your Aeros goaltenders (and goalie coach Bob Mason) get a little love from yours truly in this month's issue of InGoal Magazine, which you can go here to read: http://magazine.ingoalmag.com/publication/?i=100071

Mason was very insightful on Hackett's career development thus far and was so great in general, we got a whole extra story just about Mase out of it. Plus, some good stuff from Hack on his game-day prep and a few other things.

And goaltending analysis whiz, Justin Goldman, writes about some top up-and-coming goalies, one of which is Darcy Kuemper.

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Update: The Wild have put hard-nosed winger Brad Staubitz on waivers today. Haven't seen yet what their intentions are if he clears, though. That team is in panic mode, from all I'm seeing, but anyway, Staubitz could feasibly end up in Houston, so we'll keep an eye on that.

Ortmeyer Returns

The word is that Jed Ortmeyer has cleared waivers and is on his way back to the Aeros.  We haven't yet heard if there's a corresponding move to the Aeros roster, yet, but we'll let you know.