1/28/11 -- Aeros v. Abbotsford -- Aeros Ice the Heat

Cody Almond brings the pain in the first period.

The night was a struggle for the Aeros. They probably should have won this game easily, but instead found themselves having to get into the shootout to pull out the win and get the two points with the 4-3 win.

The Aeros took the early lead, had to hold on through an end of first period that was rather bizarre and disjointed due to a very serious injury to an Abbotsford player. They gave up leads in the second and third periods. They had some excellent play from those guys they've been getting excellent play from, and they had some disappointing and sloppy play from some others.

In the end, all that matters is the Aeros got the win and they're going into the All Star break on a very high note.

1. As of right now, the Aeros are tied, points wise, with the San Antonio Rampage for first place in the AHL West. The Aeros are 28-19-1-3 with 60 points. They're one point ahead of Peoria, two points ahead of Milwaukee, three points ahead of Texas and Oklahoma City and five points up on Chicago.

2. The Aeros do not play again this weekend. So they best they can come out of the weekend with is a tie for first place. However, Peoria plays Grand Rapids tomorrow, so with a win, the Rivermen jump into first place, or can move into a tie for first if they should get into overtime. Milwaukee, meanwhile, plays in Rockford on Saturday, so a win moves the Admirals into a tie with Houston and San Antonio.

3. Another fantastic night from Max Noreau -- two assists to give him 30 points for the season (7-23=30). And he has been ratcheting up the physical play.

4. Robbie Earl didn't score tonight, but he seemed to be around the action often, and he did great work drawing a penalty in overtime and putting the Aeros on the power play.

5. The officiating was awful. Beyond awful, if that's possible. I'm still trying to understand how it was that Tyler Cuma was sent to the box of interference on what was, instead, a fantastic and legal hip check. As it was, the game was rough and chippy from the start, and the guys in the stripes made little effort to get under control.

6. Mike Yeo sensed that Abbotsford might try to go physical and force the Aeros out of their game. And he and the staff warned the team beforehand, and throughout the game, to not let Abbotsford get them out of their game.

I didn't recognize this at the time, but Carson McMillan was pummeled at one point in the first period, and instead of getting into a big fight, backed down. He was following the game plan. And Warren Peters was mugged in the first period, yet it was Peters who wound up with all of the penalty minutes.

"I believe that we were really controlling the play," Yeo said. "That was part of their focus, the stuff after the whistles. We tried to talk about that, not getting involved in that, making sure our play, we were playing between the whistles. I felt that that kind of slowed the game down a little bit. Give them credit, it did take us off our game a little bit. But that’s something we have to make sure – it’s always about whatever the situation calls for. If the situation calls for you to get in there and stick up for your teammate at that time or maybe it calls for a momentum shift and you need to bring some energy and some life, then you do it. But there’s also a time to skate away and get out of that stuff and keep the flow of the game going our way."

7. And I think that's a bit of what Drew Bagnall was doing later in the game -- going in and sticking up for teammates. Bagnall was iffy for the game, but he surely made his presence felt throughout the game.

8. Bizarre end to the first period. With about 3.5 seconds left, the Aeros were off on what appeared to be a breakaway. Then two guys from the Heat collided around mid-ice and collapsed to the ice. The whistle blew to stop play and nothing much happened for about 15 minutes. The teams were eventually sent to the locker rooms while the medical staff handled things during what turned out to be the first part of intermission.

Play resumed after intermission with 3.5 seconds on the ice in which the first period was ended. Then the horn sounded to end the period, and then the second period was started. Bizarre.

"I’ve seen it affect both teams," Yeo said. "It’s tough, but it just depends on your group. It’s just our job as coaches to make sure that we’re saying the right things, to make sure that you don’t lose your focus. Quite often, when a player does get hurt like that, I’ve seen many times where the game changes one way or the other. It’s got to be about the next play, the next shift mentality."

9. You might not have noticed, but Nathan Smith was in uniform for the Aeros tonight. Well, not really, but for two minutes there in the second period, the scoreboard showed that it was "8," Smith's number last season, sitting in the penalty box and not "18," Colton Gillies. That wasn't as bad, however, as the PA guy who had trouble spitting out Abbotsford and Heat on numerous occasions.

10. Strange night for Anton Khudobin. He had a very poor second period in which he gave up two very soft goals. He appeared to get his act together in the third -- that third goal from Matt Keith appeared to be more the result of poor defensive play on part of Justin Falk than anything Khudobin did, and he was very solid in the OT. The one goal that Abbotsford got in the shootout was the result of a spectacular Corey Locke-esque shot than anything that Khudobin did wrong.

11. In some ways it's a shame that the All Star break is coming because the Aeros have been one of the hottest teams in the league. They were 10-2-0-1 in January and they're 12-4-0-1 since Christmas. When you're on a streak like this, you kind of want to keep going, especially when one thinks of where the team was when they headed into the Christmas break.

12. For those of you who are wondering, the Aeros will have an optional skate on Tuesday then return to practice on Wednesday before hosting Texas on Friday night. And despite the team's hot streak, the Aeros can use the break to rest up, mentally and physically.

13. The Aeros are in a tight playoff race with seven teams within five points of each other in the standings. Yeo compares the Aeros current situation to the one the Penguins were in the year they won the Stanley Cup.

"I think that our schedule is going to be better for us," he said. "Where before we were dealing with that stuff, we felt like we were always chasing everybody, at the same time we were physically getting tired. Where I think we have a little more rest now coming out of this break. But the flip side of it is, and it happened to us in Pittsburgh, we had to make a run that year. We were phenomenal after the coaching change. And every game was so important. And we were in full stride when playoffs began. I think that, usually, if you look at teams that do something in the playoffs, they found a way to elevate their game and bring their game up to a new level, and once the playoffs begin, you don’t have to try to find that next gear. "

14. Just a few quick notes. Jon DiSalvatore has a point in eight of his last nine games (4-5=9). Anton Khudobin has won four of his last five starts. Jean-Micheal Daoust's first period goal was his 300th career goal.

15. The Aeros are now 23-7-0-2 when they score the first goal.

16. Chad Rau, who hit the game-winning shot in the shootout, was not entirely happy with his shot, and after the game, he was talking about how he would have liked to take it back and try it again. He thinks he got lucky because he didn't exactly do what he wanted to do and as such, the goalie was able to get his glove on the puck.

17. On a personal note, it was nice to see Abbotsford assistant coach Troy Ward tonight. I dealt with Troy a lot in his three years as Kevin Constantine's assistant here with the Aeros, and he was always easy to deal with.

10/24/10 -- Aeros vs. Lake Erie -- I Think I'm On A Losing Streak Edition

In case you were elsewhere today, you might have missed the big news. The Aeros actually held a lead going into the third period. That's no lie, the Aeros skated out for the third period with a 2-1 lead. They promptly lost that lead :47 into the period, and they eventually lost the game 3-2. But with the Aeros, you take the small victories where you can find them, and for this game, it should be noted, the Aeros actually had a lead after two periods.

Now the hail of bullets.

1. The Aeros second goal was a thing of beauty. Jarod Palmer rushed the net with the puck. He drew a defenseman with him, and as he went past the goal, Lake Erie goalie John Grahame followed. Palmer passed back up the ice, and across the net, where he hit perfectly hit Casey Wellman with the puck, and Wellman buried the puck before Grahame could even think of getting back into position. And for once, the Aeros got the puck in the net.

2. I should know this. Those of us on press row should know this. But none of us do, so...is Max Noreau hurt? He's not shooting the puck as often as he did last year, especially on the power play, and when he does, the shot seems to lack the zip it's had in seasons past.

3. If Noreau's not hurt, then why the hell isn't he shooting it more on the power play?

4. I thought Marco Scandella had another good game. He bailed out Khudobin in the second period when Khudobin made a block and the puck bounced around the crease, seemingly forever. As a Lake Erie player came rushing for the puck, Scandella appeared from out of nowhere and swatted the puck away, preventing the goal.

5. Yeah, I'm liking what I see from Scandella.

6. It would have been nice to see Warren Peters swat the puck out of harm's way in the third period on the goal that tied the game. Peters thought he should have got to the puck, but didn't, saying: "Looking back on what happened – I was on the ice for one of them – we ended up going back into our zone, the puck went over my head, I guess close enough for me to grab it with my hand and try to take a swipe at it. The guy’s waiting on the other side, he bangs it into the empty net."

7. Where in the hell were the Ice Girls? Damn it, don't toss them out for just one game to start the season then get rid of them. You don't expect me to have to watch this team, do you?

8. I was the only one of us three there for the entire game. Heather went to something called an opera and didn't show up until the second period. Andrew's son was playing a little league baseball game, and he didn't arrive until the third -- note, the Aeros were winning when Andrew arrived, then promptly gave up the lead. Make of that what you will.

9. I thought the team looked awful in the first period. Whether it was just sluggishness from playing the third game in three days, or whether it was just bad play, I don't know. I thought the team looked better in the second. Heather thought I was nuts for saying this, but after all, she didn't see them in the first period. I thought their third period was the worst of the three.

10. There was no excuse for the way the team started that third period.

11. Mike Yeo agrees about that third period: "That’s a very disappointing way to lose a hockey game. Right there. For three games in three nights I thought, for two periods we’d done a lot of good things. But to come out – there were three mental lapses on the first goal, and there were two on the second. You’ve got to know – to be a winner you’ve got to know what the situation calls for. And we didn’t there in the third period."

12. For the commenter to an earlier post saying the Aeros should sign Krys Kolanos. Know this: Kolanos is unsigned at this point. There's a reason he's unsigned. So get over the mythology of Kolanos already.

13. The defenseman, for the most part, and in my opinion, have been very good. Especially Scandella and Drew Bagnall. And I think I understand why Brandon Rogers is being scratched every night. But it's obvious to all that the power play's not working, and in the past, before the current folks took over in St. Paul, Rogers was a good power play quarterback -- he was especially good at it getting it to Noreau in just the right spot for one of Noreau's shots. So maybe they should sit one of the ineffective forwards -- I think they can find a few to choose from -- and find away to get Rogers some ice time. If even for just the power play.

14. You know that Troy Ward's up in Abbotsford, looking at the power play stats, and laughing at all those who thought he and Kevin Constantine were at fault for the power play woes. Constantine's in Switzerland, and if I were in Switzerland, or anywhere in Europe, I wouldn't be wasting my time checking out AHL stats.

15. I did the math during the first intermission. It was 158:30 between goals for the Aeros. Yeah, that's bad.

16. When asked after the game if he saw anything good in the Aeros, Yeo responded that he liked seeing the team have a lead, and score some goals as opposed to losing with no goals. But that was said with an air of resignation.

17. Jarod Palmer: no more fights please. That was a pretty weak one in the first period. Leave the fighting to Bagnall or Matt Kassian. That's what they're there for.

18. The Aeros lost to the Lake Erie Monsters. How bad do you have to be lose to the Monsters, especially when this is the last game of a seven-game road trip.

19. After seven games: the Aeros are 2-4-1 (five points) and in last place in the West Division.

20. The Aeros have their third three-in-three in three consecutive weekends this week. They play in San Antonio on Friday, Austin on Saturday, and here for Sunday. Sunday is Halloween. If the Aeros play anything next Sunday like they did today, then that's going to be one scary Halloween.

21. On the plus side, next Sunday is Halloween which means the Dynamics will be in costume.

22. That's it for this edition. And I think the Rolling Stones and "Satisfaction" might be in order because this team is on a five game losing streak and nobody who is watching them is getting any satisfaction.

On Troy Ward And Some Miscellaneous Things

For those of you who are interested -- and who claim we ignore most of the team (I disagree with Andrew on that point) -- I've got a post on Troy Ward up over at the mothership right now. So I strongly encourage you to go read it -- especially since the better the click to read numbers over there, the better the chances of continuing Aeros coverage over there (you should note that the Press is currently devoting way more coverage to the Cougars and Aeros than they are the Texans and the Rockets).

I just want to add a few comments. Troy and Kevin are very aware of all of the things you -- and we here at T3I -- bitch about all of the time. Troy takes the hit for the power play numbers, though the comparison to the 2007-08 Aeros is very valid in that that club had to be one of the worst power play clubs I've ever seen -- Andrew and I would often joke that year that the Aeros should just decline the penalty and send a man of their own off of the ice since the penalty kill was so much better. But Troy's also right in that you can't expect a power play like last year's in that there were some players who could take nights off and still score a goal by the flick of a wrist.

Some other things Troy said reminded me of that 2007-08 club. I remember Erik Reitz telling us early in the season that there were some guys who just couldn't make themselves climb aboard and play Kevin's system -- for some, there was a difficulty with grasping it, for others there was a "I don't like my role" in the system thing. Troy said that there are still some guys who are too willing to go outside of the system and do their own thing.

I also think that injuries -- in Houston and Minnesota have hurt the club. There are some guys, like Peter Zingoni, who got off to a really good start, but have been hurt for most of the season. Other's like Andy Hilbert and Cody Almond have missed time due to injuries.

If you noticed, Brandon Rogers played defense last night. That's not because of inadequacies on the part of Rogers, but it was because for the first time since the start of the season, the Aeros actually had a full squad of healthy forwards available to play. And I like to think that the return of Zingoni might help things further. And here's my thinking.

The line of Hilbert/Jean-Michel Daoust/Chad Rau has been on the ball the past ten games or so. I didn't realize, until I looked at the stats last night, that this line has quietly been on fire. They've had some problems defensively, which both Constantine and Hilbert mentioned last night, but if there's been any line forcing action on the offensive end recently, they've been it. And Constantine went out of his way to mention Hilbert's leadership abilities last night, and how he was trying to set the example on the ice for other players to follow -- I say this because my question had just been to Hilbert's efforts in scoring last night, Kevin took it from there and ran with it.

I would also note that one of the best lines at the start of the season was Zingoni/Almond/Carson McMillan. Almond broke his wrist early, and I think he's just now coming back to full strength. I think if Zingoni can come back, these guys can get reteamed, and they can take off again. That would give the team two decent lines. I could see a teaming of DiSalvatore/Milroy/Smith and Irmen/Kassian/Earl/Gillies.

Then again, there's no real telling as to when DiSalvatore, Earl, Smith, etc. will be recalled to Minnesota.

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One further thing, for those who want to know why last night's non-goal wasn't mentioned, that's easy, I didn't feel like it. There's no replay review in the AHL, so the Toyota Center video's crew constant replaying of an inconclusive replay was useless and childish. And as Forecheck said in the comments, it appeared that the goal judge might have had his line of vision screened and couldn't see it. Unlike Max Noreau's non-goal in game seven against Peoria last season, the Aeros didn't really seem bothered by it after the game, so I saw no need to pursue it.

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Congratulations to Max Noreau for making the Canadian squad for the AHL All-Star Game.

12/26 -- Aeros v. Rampage -- The I've Just Seen A Face Edition

Kevin Constantine has told us over the past several years that one of the games he can never predict is the game after the Christmas break. It’s just one of those wild card games in which he has no idea which of the teams is going to show up, or how the game is going to go. And tonight’s game was a perfect example.

The San Antonio Rampage showed up for the entire game -- they especially showed up for the first period as they were up 2-0 just a little over six minutes into the game, and before many of the 6323 fans in attendance had even found their seats. Then Barry Brust came into the game for the ineffective Anton Khudobin and could only watch helplessly as one of those fluke shots that have haunted Wade Dubielewicz all season went into the net to make the score 3-0 at the 9:05 mark of the first period.

That third goal came about when Brust went behind the net to field the puck and send it out to one of his players. But a weird hop there, and strange bounce there, and the puck was on the stick of the Rampage’s Matt Watkins who easily found the empty net.

“It was kind of riding on the dasher,” Brust said of puck. “And it hit a partition and just popped out front. It’s tough luck. We got a couple of those last year, and didn’t have any against us until tonight.”

Luckily, the first period ended before San Antonio could do any further damage. But the damage they’d done would prove to be more than enough.

A different Aeros team came out for the second period, and it was a team that leveled some hits and found a way to get on the board, the first coming when Jon DiSalvatore took a pass from Nathan Smith then snaked his way through the Rampage defense to score a short-handed goal at 1:44. Then Max Noreau fired a shot from way up high, which with the advantage of what appeared to be a nice screen from Duncan Milroy, got past San Antonio’s Justin Pogge at 16:00 to make the score 3-2.

“We came in the room -- we scored two goals in that period which was huge for us,” Noreau said. “Jon had made a great move on that short-handed goal and that was huge for us getting that first goal, and we were only down by one. One more shot on the net, and it’s a goal and it’s a 3-3 game and we come out with the win.”

But that one more goal was not to be. Houston out-shot San Antonio in the second and third periods, and many of those shots were of a high-percentage variety, but Pogge proved to be just too good as San Antonio got the 4-2 win (the final goal came on a San Antonio empty-netter at 19:00 of the third).

The loss dropped the Aeros record to 16-14-2-1 (35 points) and a disturbing 9-9-1-0 at home. They’re now in fifth place in the West Division, two points behind Rockford, Peoria, and Milwaukee -- who are all tied for second -- but only three points up on sixth place Chicago. They’ll next play on Monday night when they host the Syracuse Crunch at 7:05.

SOME MISCELLANEOUS NOTES:

As Andrew mentioned below, Constantine is displeased with the effort of some of his forwards, though he didn’t name names. And it’s a trend that he’s noticed over the past several games. He specifically mentioned the Grand Rapids game.

“We finished the break with a win, but gave up a lot chances against Grand Rapids,” he said. “So it was nice to get the win. But there were little signs of stuff, and I don’t know, if we had checked out a little in the Grand Rapids game. If you remember we had a really poor start -- a bad start to the third period. I don’t know if we had checked out a little bit there, and I don’t know if we’d checked back in yet either. I know that there are circumstances around those, but the trend of the two games, is concerning.”

There are several things bothering him -- a lack of physical play, and a tendency to give up the first goal on the first shot of the game.

“You can take the obvious, which is pucks, lot of first shots or first scoring chances have gone in on us in the last five games,” he told us. “There’s a goalie readiness issue in that. Our physical play is down significantly over the last couple of games. So there is a compete factor for the forwards. There’s some guys whose game has flattened out a little bit or dipped a little bit, so there’s some individual guys whose performance is down right now. There’s a combination of a lot of stuff, and you don’t know exactly how to look at it when you have the circumstances of the break. So you have to grind our way back into the playing the we know we can play.”

I also talked to assistant coach/assistant GM Troy Ward a bit after the game for a piece I’m doing for the mothership next week. And he noted that there’s still a problem with some of the guys who are new to the team still trying to do things their own way a bit too much. He said that last year, guys like Krys Kolanos and Corey Locke had the ability -- especially on the power play -- to do things their own way and still get the points whereas some of these guys -- once again, not naming names -- just don’t have that ability. His hope, and belief, is that guys like Brandon Rogers, Max Noreau, and Danny Irmen -- guys who know Constantine’s system -- will be able to get the newcomers to trust in the Constantine system because they know it works.

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As you might have noticed, Barry Brust made his return to action for the Aeros, playing his first game in a Aeros sweater since last March. And except for that fluke goal in the first, he was perfect, keeping the team in the game and giving them a chance to win.

“He was great,” Constantine said. “He had the weird goal against, but -- we gave up two breakaways at the start of the second period and it’s over because then it’s four-nothing [unless Brust makes the save], so we didn’t even have a prayer unless he made five or six big saves to give us at least a chance to come back.”

And as Max Noreau stated, it was a great game for goalies: “[Justin Pogge] made some great saves out there and kept them in the game. Brusty did the same thing for us in the third period and the second when we gave up a couple of breakaways. The goalies played a huge part in the game tonight. Hopefully we’ll get better bounces next game.”

As for Brust, let’s just say that Heather wasn’t the only one happy to see him back in action. For one thing, he’s always a good guy to talk to in the locker room after the game, win or lose, but he’s also fun to watch out on the ice.

And while I’m sure Brust was happy to be back, I’m pretty sure that this is not the way he wanted to make his return. However, playing for Kevin Constantine, a goalie has to follow the Boy Scout motto and always be prepared.

“Here the coaches aren’t afraid to pull the goalie,” Brust said. “So you pretty much have to be ready, no matter what. You’re always into [the game], trying to talk on the bench and stuff like that, and try to stay into it mentally.”

As for the loss, Brust was philosophical: “We battled hard, but the hockey gods didn’t want to give us this one tonight.”

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From reading the comments, I can tell that some of you are a bit upset about tonight’s Bikini Contest. Especially with it coming right after Christmas. My response: GET OVER IT. First, the team generally has a great attendance on the night of this contest, so that means there are plenty of people who like it. And I wouldn’t expect them to do anything about a promotion that increases attendance. Second, this isn’t the first time they’ve had this contest on the first game back from the Christmas break. They did it at the same time last season, and they’ve had it on this same night in other seasons.

I’m generally not one to defend the team when it comes to promotions, etc., but anything that helps the attendance and doesn’t detract from the game -- like a lot of the promotions do -- isn’t a bad thing. You didn’t have to walk around a bunch of dogs, you didn’t have to miss work to attend an 11:00 game so school kids could attend, they didn’t have to stop play for many, many minutes to clear teddy bears off of the ice, and you didn’t have to deal with several annoying choirs singing the same damn song during intermissions.

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Forecheck, I noted your request for Pink Floyd’s “Comfortably Numb.” That’s nice, so nice, that I’m going to give that it’s own post, primarily because, several months ago, I set myself a goal of trying to find a suitable Beatles song to play after every game, without repeating a song.

That brings us to tonight’s game. So in honor of several women I know swooning over the appearance of Mr. Brust in goal, and in honor of the guys who were swooning over the young ladies in the Miss Aeros contest, here’s The Beatles with "I've Just Seen A Face.”

Constantine and Staff to return in 2009-10

Here is the story.

(And an update ... Russo in MSP confirmed with Fletcher on his fantastic blog)

Highlights:

Constantine, 50, said he's talked to Chuck Fletcher, who took over as Wild GM for the departed Doug Risebrough, and the Aeros' coaching staff was lauded by the new boss and welcomed back for 2009-10.

"I am looking forward to relaxing this summer after a long season, and I am looking forward to continuing our staff's work with the Aeros next year," said Constantine

Assistants Troy G. Ward and Luke Strand will return to work with Constantine next season.

In addition to the playoffs, the Aeros are 83-60-4-13 under Constantine, including a 46-25-3-6 mark at Toyota Center.