Power Rankings: Fallon helps Aeros back to Top 5

If anything, doing the power rankings today made me realize that I probably had the Aeros too low last week. It takes a lot to move up or down six spots in one week, but what Joe Fallon did this week for the Aeros cannot be minimized.

Joe Fallon won all four games for the Aeros last week.
He said he lost about 7 pounds per game, too. 

He stole probably three points the Aeros did not deserve on Saturday and Sunday, and he was great when the offense was clicking on Tuesday and Friday. A perfect 4-0 week moved the Aeros all the way up to the No. 3 team in the conference and the No. 7 ranked team in the AHL overall. Obviously, because of the playoff rules, the Aeros cannot be seeded 2 or 3 if they finish behind the OKC Barons.

The Aeros magic number is down to 10, and they'd really have to fall off the wagon not to at least snatch one of the top 8 seeds for the postseason tournament.

The Aeros get some much-needed rest this week before starting a tough four-game road trip in Rockford on Friday.

As for the rest of the league, OKC is back on top. Toronto was unimpressive against the Wolves, and they really needed a weekend sweep to stay on Top. Speaking of Chicago, they are bag atop the Midwest and Charlotte has really hit the skids.

San Antonio and Lake Erie fell back, too, after bad weeks, but both of those teams are right in the middle of the playoff chase.

Don't go anywhere, fans - things are getting REAL interesting now.

2011-12 Western Conference Power Rankings
Edition 8, March 19, 2012

PR	Team	Record	Streak	Last	+/-	For the record …
1	OKC	39-17-4-5	0-1	3-0-0-1	+1	Back on top to stay
2	TOR	36-22-4-3	2-0	2-1-0-0	-1	Just 16-16 on the road this year.
3	PEO	35-26-2-1	4-0	1-0-0-0	-	O’Sullivan – 9pts in 5 gms.
4	CHI	35-24-2-3	2-0	2-1-0-0	+1	Back in control of Midwest
5	HOU	32-20-3-9	4-0	4-0-0-0	+6	Hackett re-joins from MIN
6	CLT	32-22-3-5	0-2	0-2-0-0	-2	Lost 5 of 6 overall.
7	RCH	31-23-6-3	1-0	1-1-0-0	+2	Tough loss vs. SYR Friday
8	SAT	33-26-3-1	0-3	0-2-0-0	-2	Offense has gone dark
9	ABB	33-25-3-4	0-1	1-1-0-1	-1	6 of next 7 at home
10	LEM	32-26-3-4	0-2	0-1-1-0	-3	Tough schedule will be a test
11	RFD	29-28-2-5	1-0	1-2-0-0	-1	Relishing spoiler role yet again
12	MKE	31-27-2-2	0-1	1-1-0-0	-	Running out of time
13	GRR	28-24-6-4	1-0	2-1-0-0	-	Sarcastic thank-yous to Detroit
14	HAM	27-29-2-5	0-2	1-2-0-0	-	Here’s to next year
15	TEX	27-32-2-2	0-3	0-3-0-0	-	Rookie help on the way

More on AHL in the Southwest from the Stars POV

Just got this across my Google reader from Mike Heika, the Dallas Stars beat writer, on the Dallas perspective on the team shuffling that's on the horizon in the AHL.

One comment... he mentions expansion of the league, but David Andrews yesterday was very clear that that was not an option. There are 30 franchises (one dormant) and 30 NHL teams. Period. And, as John's post mentioned, putting an AHL team in competition with the CHL team in OKC is an unwelcome proposition.

The thought I have on this is that I know the CHL has dibs on an arena going up for the 2010 season in the Independence/Kansas City, MO area but no team yet. Perhaps they ship the OKC CHL team to MO, and replace them with Edmonton AHL team in OKC.

(Bold Prediction: At some point, one of us will bust out YouTube video of music from Oklahoma! before this is all over.)

Anyway, it all kinda makes my tiny brain spin, but it's interesting to hear what Dallas is thinking. And it's interesting to ponder the idea of FOUR teams in the southwest.

More potential AHL Movement - Updated

You know, something just bothers me about the title I just wrote. But I digress...

According to the Calgary Herald, the Edmonton Oilers want to move their AHL prospects from Springfield (Falcons, currently coached by Rob Daum) to Oklahoma City the year after next.

But that is not even the best part about this article.

Unless I am reading this wrong, it does not look like the Dallas prospects will be playing in Austin next season, which has previously been reported. Edmonton has called the Stars about Dallas putting their prospects in Springfield next year while the Edmonton club prepares the move of their dormant franchise to OKC for 2010-11.

Is this the first unofficial signal that the new building will not be ready to go by October?

If anyone reads that or understands that differently, please let us know.

--Aeroscribe

Update:

The Dallas Stars have not been able to secure a franchise for the Texas Stars from the AHL. No one is selling. Edmonton has the Roadrunners franchise that is suspended but they want to use that in the 2010-2011 season themselves. Apparently Edmonton has offered to lease that franchise to Dallas for the 2009-2010 season.

So much so, according to Andrews, that the Dallas Stars have a turn-key operation ready to go in Austin but haven't been able to find an owner willing to sell.

"We're left with the strange situation of having someone ready to go and buy a franchise and have yet to find a seller," Andrews said.

Here is where I got this information.

From that same article you get a sense that this may be the tip of the iceberg with teams moving West as evidenced from this

Not everything is roses for the league, however. The league's future in Philadelphia, one of its biggest markets, is in doubt, and the league's relative stability could be affected by what happens with the dormant Edmonton franchise.

Edmonton currently is affiliated with Springfield, Mass., but owns an AHL franchise the Oilers can activate at any time. Should the Oilers do so and take the team and affiliation to a new city, it could be the domino that causes a wave of movements around the league.

-- Fred