From the Minnesota Wild this afternoon:
Statement from Minnesota Wild General Manager, Chuck Fletcher, regarding Tom Thompson:
Minnesota Wild General Manager Chuck Fletcher today announced that the National Hockey League (NHL) club will not renew the contract of Assistant General Manager, Tom Thompson.
“The Wild thanks Tom Thompson for his years of service and many contributions to the organization. We wish Tom future success,” Fletcher said.
The Wild will not comment further regarding this situation.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
This is just sick, sick, sick ...
The NHL postseason so far has been absolutely outstanding.
Every series has a great story line, and the games themselves have been incredible.
Which first-round series are you following, and who do you think is going to win the Cup this year? Most experts are calling for a Chicago-Washington final. Hard to argue there, but there are always upsets.
Here is amazing goal by Alex Ovenchicken. Love typing that, by the way.
Listen to the commentator: "I don't care who the goalie is, they're not stopping that."
Thursday, April 15, 2010
My favorite KC quote
Constantine is a great quote. I wish I'd kept my favorites but I was cleaning out my microrecorder today and ran across this one again, which was from after The Darcy Kuemper Game a few weeks ago where he got his first pro start and the team played great and got the win at home.
It really resonated with me as an "athlete" and as a human, but is also quite representative of the kind of thought KC put into answering our questions, into the game, into his players. Stuff like this is why I loved talking to him after games.
It really resonated with me as an "athlete" and as a human, but is also quite representative of the kind of thought KC put into answering our questions, into the game, into his players. Stuff like this is why I loved talking to him after games.
“The beauty of the game is every new day and every game is another opportunity to perform and to display your talents. And we realize, at the end of the night, you have the unavoidable feeling of either satisfaction and pride--or a little bit of frustration and embarrassment. So, you have to go into the game knowing that, those feelings, one or the other is going to happen.”As soon as they got a new GM in Minnesota, I anticipated that this was KC's last season here, so there's no surprise in this. But I am grateful for his time here, not only because he made this team immeasurably better, but as someone still learning the game, to learn from him in particular has been a real privilege.
So long, KC ... Thank you for three good years.
Just because you know all along something is bound to happen, it always sucks a little more when it becomes official.
Kevin Constantine's contract will not be renewed, and he has coached his last game for the Aeros.
While I understand all the reasons as to why he was dismissed, one thing we'll never know, for sure, is if there was anything KC could have done to keep his job in Houston.
I think his fate was sealed last summer. Money is probably the only reason (not having to pay two coaches (the fired one and the new one)) that he got another year.
Who knows?
I talked to Kevin this afternoon, and he told me that he is going to do some speaking engagements for USA Hockey in the immediate future. After that, I am sure he and his agent will be talking about what jobs are available. More and more of those will surface in the coming weeks and after teams are eliminated from their playoffs.
He said he was treated fairly by the Wild and that the conversation was cordial and to the point. He said the team just wanted to go in a different direction, and that was that.
Now, as to who will replace KC, that remains to be seen. There are some reports that Claude Noel could be in the mix, and there are a few other coaches with connections to Chuck Fletcher that will get a look. Troy Ward, according to Russo, is a candidate. John Anderson, who coached the Wolves to championships time and time again, also just got fired by the Atlanta Thrashers.
We've said it before, and we'll say it again. This is going to be an interesting summer.
Kevin Constantine's contract will not be renewed, and he has coached his last game for the Aeros.
While I understand all the reasons as to why he was dismissed, one thing we'll never know, for sure, is if there was anything KC could have done to keep his job in Houston.
I think his fate was sealed last summer. Money is probably the only reason (not having to pay two coaches (the fired one and the new one)) that he got another year.
Who knows?
I talked to Kevin this afternoon, and he told me that he is going to do some speaking engagements for USA Hockey in the immediate future. After that, I am sure he and his agent will be talking about what jobs are available. More and more of those will surface in the coming weeks and after teams are eliminated from their playoffs.
He said he was treated fairly by the Wild and that the conversation was cordial and to the point. He said the team just wanted to go in a different direction, and that was that.
Now, as to who will replace KC, that remains to be seen. There are some reports that Claude Noel could be in the mix, and there are a few other coaches with connections to Chuck Fletcher that will get a look. Troy Ward, according to Russo, is a candidate. John Anderson, who coached the Wolves to championships time and time again, also just got fired by the Atlanta Thrashers.
We've said it before, and we'll say it again. This is going to be an interesting summer.
(Updated) Constantine has coached his last game in Houston
(here is the link from the Star-Tribune in MSP)It all started last summer when the Wild kept Constantine and his team around after completely cleaning house otherwise. The fact that KC stayed, I think, is a huge testament to what he had done in the past with various levels of hockey talent. Russo in MSP said just as much a couple of weeks ago in his blog. Granted that was not attributed to anyone, but come on ... it's not a real big secret.
What KC did in '08 and '09 to get two completely different teams to the playoffs speaks for itself. The first team was very offensively inept and was buoyed by great goaltending. Last year, it was the other way around. This year, the division was just too good and too many times the team could not match the opponent in the first period. In other words, they played catch up way too much.
Constantine told me after the game Sunday that he didn't know what his future holds. He did say that Chuck Fletcher told him, no matter what, that he would not drag things out too far into the summer. He expected to hear something very quickly, and I expect that we will all know for sure that KC has been dismissed before any AHL team makes it to the second round.
By my count, only Dave Tippett and Todd McLellan have coached more games for the Aeros than Constantine. Those guys, as everyone knows, have done very well for themselves since then. What they had that KC never had, was an absolutely stacked team. Most of that is because the Aeros, like most other AHL teams, do not spend like Hershey or Chicago. That also has very much to do with the Wild having one of the worst group of prospects at the moment.
While I have no doubt that this will get better (only one way to go, right?) the next coach will have a challenge on his hands starting in September when camp opens for 2010-11.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
And In The End
Okay, my season wrap-up is posted at the mothership. Ignore the byline, I'm actually the one who wrote it. And leave them some comments over there to let them know you're reading. And mention me, by name, and how much you like the stuff, if you want.
Monday, April 12, 2010
The First Annual T3I Awards
We've decided to do some postseason items on the team. And I volunteered to do the Aeros awards for the season just played. So after consulting with the rest of the T3I crew, here are the winners for the T3I Houston Aeros Awards.
TEAM MVP: Max Noreau. There's a reason that Noreau made the second team All-AHL Team. He's that good. He tied for second on the team in points (18 goals-34 assists=52 points). He was named to the AHL All Star team. He was the team's most consistent offensive threat, even from the blue line. And he anchored a defense that was often full of holes due to injuries in Houston and Minnesota.
ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: Chad Rau. Cody Almond was the big name coming into the season, and he showed flashes of brilliance, between injuries, call ups to Minnesota, and inconsistent play. But Rau played in all but one game, was one of the team's leading scorers (19 goals-19 assists=38 points), and never appeared to be out of his element. He didn't make stupid mistakes.
GOALIE OF THE YEAR: Anton Khudobin. It was a tough year for Aeros goalies. There was the inconsistent defense. The almost nightly inability of the offense to score goals. The need to be perfect every night. Khudobin kept the team in contention the first part of the year. His record might only have been 14-19-4, but he was bombarded by shots every night, from nearly every angle. He was able to get four shutouts, and despite it all, allowed only 91 goals in 40 games.
DEFENSEMAN OF THE YEAR: Max Noreau. Brandon Rogers spent way too much time having to play forward. Clayton Stoner went to Minnesota and never came back. That left Noreau as the veteran of the bunch, and he ended up virtually leading the team's offensive attack -- what little there was of it -- from the blue line.
FORWARD OF THE YEAR: Jon DiSalvatore. DiSalvatore was not only the team's captain, but he was one of the team's leading scorer, finishing with 52 points after getting 21 goals, 31 assists, and a team high 11 power play goals. DiSalvatore didn't have a lot to work with as Kevin Constantine constantly shifted lines because of injuries, call-ups, and ineffectiveness. Yet DiSalvatore was always a constant.
THE SURPRISE OF THE YEAR: Jean-Michel Daoust. Neither of us press types knew anything about Daoust when he made the team -- and I admit to enjoying listening to the Toyota PA types change the pronunciation of his name from game-to-game. But damn, this guy played some hockey. He was the team's leading scorer (21 goals-34 assists=55 points), and I don't think anyone played with more effort or determination. I can't help but think that if the whole team would have played with the want of Daoust, this team would have found a way to make the playoffs.
BIGGEST LOST (PLAYER WISE): Andy Hilbert. Hilbert missed most of the season due to concussion issues. And without him, the offense just couldn't click. DiSalvatore was left alone as the team's go-to offensive option. It's hard to play the what-if game, but one can't help but wonder if things would have been different if Hilbert had been available the entire season.
WORST LUCK: Wade Dubielewicz. I can't think of one guy who had worst luck this season than Dubie. Who can forget opening night, against Manitoba, when the puck bounced high off of the glass behind the net, hit Dubie in the back, then bounced into the net for a goal. Then there was the Rockford game on January 10 that the Aeros lost 2-1 after Rockford's Mike Brennan took a shot in OT that was going to be wide of the net, very wide of the net, only it hit the knob of Dubie's stick and went into the net to win the game for Rockford.
WORST LUCK NOT INVOLVING WADE DUBIELEWICZ (TIE): Peter Zingoni and Barry Brust. Zingoni came to the team after an injury-filled 2008-09 season. He came out hot, then got injured. Nobody worked harder to get back, then he got hurt again. And he came back, and got hurt again. Then there's the strange case of Barry Brust. Andrew and Heather know more details, but the brass in Minnesota didn't seem to like him. Then he got injured in camp. He got stuck in purgatory in Florida, and when he got his chance in Houston, he got injured -- first an ugly leg slash, then injuring his foot again.
WACKIEST MOMENTS (TIE): A puck hits Dubie on the back and bounces into the goal. A puck hits the knob of Dubie's stick and bounces into the goal -- a shot that would have gone way wide. But the true wackiest moment was any game in which Dubielewicz was sitting on the bench. If you didn't see Coach Dubie on the bench during a game, then you missed out. He banged the boards. He shouted out instructions at the goalies, and the players. He encouraged his teammates. I think he got a bigger workout on the bench than he did when playing.
(That said, and as an aside, Wade was a very good guy to deal with in the locker room for us. He never shied away from answering questions. He always spoke his mind. He never threw anybody under the bus.)
WACKIEST MOMENT NOT INVOLVING WADE DUBIELEWICZ: It was tough watching Barry Brust suffer that leg slash against Peoria. But without it, there would have never been that moment when Jeff Crawford came skating out to goal as the first intermission came to a close. We didn't know the condition of Brust at the moment, so the entire press row thought that Crawford was going to have to play the rest of the game. What made the moment was watching all of the scouts on press row, and there were still a lot of scouts following the team on February 3rd, and they were scrambling through every sheet of paper on the tables trying to get any scrap of info on Crawford.
MOST INSPIRATIONAL MOMENT: With the scouts scrambling to find out info on Crawford, the Peoria coach agreed to give the Aeros a few extra minutes, and as the clock ticked to zero, Barry Brust, who had suffered a deep slash of his thigh in the first period. He got about 30 stitches during the intermission, did a few butterflies to show he was capable of making the blocks and making the moves, then skated out to the ice and got the win, stopping 25 of the 26 shots he saw that night.
BEST ARENA ADDITION: Let's hear for the brass up in Minnesota for getting replays for every game played at Toyota Center, no matter when the game was played. In the past, we've been stuck with replays just on Friday and Saturday. But this year, we had them every game. So thank you.
WORST NON-TEAM DEVELOPMENT: For some reason, the number of Lady Dynamics dropped, and dropped, throughout the season. And I liked watching the Lady Dynamics. But I want to give my thanks to those young ladies who stuck it out for the whole season. Thank you.
BEST READERS: This is for the readers of T3I. Thanks for sticking with us all season. I apologize for not being around as much as last season, but hopefully the T3I supplied you with all of the information about the team that you needed, and wanted. Thanks for reading. We appreciate it.
BIGGEST T3I LOSS: Fred, we missed you this season. It wasn't the same without you around. I'm sorry I couldn't do more to help out.
TEAM MVP: Max Noreau. There's a reason that Noreau made the second team All-AHL Team. He's that good. He tied for second on the team in points (18 goals-34 assists=52 points). He was named to the AHL All Star team. He was the team's most consistent offensive threat, even from the blue line. And he anchored a defense that was often full of holes due to injuries in Houston and Minnesota.
ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: Chad Rau. Cody Almond was the big name coming into the season, and he showed flashes of brilliance, between injuries, call ups to Minnesota, and inconsistent play. But Rau played in all but one game, was one of the team's leading scorers (19 goals-19 assists=38 points), and never appeared to be out of his element. He didn't make stupid mistakes.
GOALIE OF THE YEAR: Anton Khudobin. It was a tough year for Aeros goalies. There was the inconsistent defense. The almost nightly inability of the offense to score goals. The need to be perfect every night. Khudobin kept the team in contention the first part of the year. His record might only have been 14-19-4, but he was bombarded by shots every night, from nearly every angle. He was able to get four shutouts, and despite it all, allowed only 91 goals in 40 games.
DEFENSEMAN OF THE YEAR: Max Noreau. Brandon Rogers spent way too much time having to play forward. Clayton Stoner went to Minnesota and never came back. That left Noreau as the veteran of the bunch, and he ended up virtually leading the team's offensive attack -- what little there was of it -- from the blue line.
FORWARD OF THE YEAR: Jon DiSalvatore. DiSalvatore was not only the team's captain, but he was one of the team's leading scorer, finishing with 52 points after getting 21 goals, 31 assists, and a team high 11 power play goals. DiSalvatore didn't have a lot to work with as Kevin Constantine constantly shifted lines because of injuries, call-ups, and ineffectiveness. Yet DiSalvatore was always a constant.
THE SURPRISE OF THE YEAR: Jean-Michel Daoust. Neither of us press types knew anything about Daoust when he made the team -- and I admit to enjoying listening to the Toyota PA types change the pronunciation of his name from game-to-game. But damn, this guy played some hockey. He was the team's leading scorer (21 goals-34 assists=55 points), and I don't think anyone played with more effort or determination. I can't help but think that if the whole team would have played with the want of Daoust, this team would have found a way to make the playoffs.
BIGGEST LOST (PLAYER WISE): Andy Hilbert. Hilbert missed most of the season due to concussion issues. And without him, the offense just couldn't click. DiSalvatore was left alone as the team's go-to offensive option. It's hard to play the what-if game, but one can't help but wonder if things would have been different if Hilbert had been available the entire season.
WORST LUCK: Wade Dubielewicz. I can't think of one guy who had worst luck this season than Dubie. Who can forget opening night, against Manitoba, when the puck bounced high off of the glass behind the net, hit Dubie in the back, then bounced into the net for a goal. Then there was the Rockford game on January 10 that the Aeros lost 2-1 after Rockford's Mike Brennan took a shot in OT that was going to be wide of the net, very wide of the net, only it hit the knob of Dubie's stick and went into the net to win the game for Rockford.
WORST LUCK NOT INVOLVING WADE DUBIELEWICZ (TIE): Peter Zingoni and Barry Brust. Zingoni came to the team after an injury-filled 2008-09 season. He came out hot, then got injured. Nobody worked harder to get back, then he got hurt again. And he came back, and got hurt again. Then there's the strange case of Barry Brust. Andrew and Heather know more details, but the brass in Minnesota didn't seem to like him. Then he got injured in camp. He got stuck in purgatory in Florida, and when he got his chance in Houston, he got injured -- first an ugly leg slash, then injuring his foot again.
WACKIEST MOMENTS (TIE): A puck hits Dubie on the back and bounces into the goal. A puck hits the knob of Dubie's stick and bounces into the goal -- a shot that would have gone way wide. But the true wackiest moment was any game in which Dubielewicz was sitting on the bench. If you didn't see Coach Dubie on the bench during a game, then you missed out. He banged the boards. He shouted out instructions at the goalies, and the players. He encouraged his teammates. I think he got a bigger workout on the bench than he did when playing.
(That said, and as an aside, Wade was a very good guy to deal with in the locker room for us. He never shied away from answering questions. He always spoke his mind. He never threw anybody under the bus.)
WACKIEST MOMENT NOT INVOLVING WADE DUBIELEWICZ: It was tough watching Barry Brust suffer that leg slash against Peoria. But without it, there would have never been that moment when Jeff Crawford came skating out to goal as the first intermission came to a close. We didn't know the condition of Brust at the moment, so the entire press row thought that Crawford was going to have to play the rest of the game. What made the moment was watching all of the scouts on press row, and there were still a lot of scouts following the team on February 3rd, and they were scrambling through every sheet of paper on the tables trying to get any scrap of info on Crawford.
MOST INSPIRATIONAL MOMENT: With the scouts scrambling to find out info on Crawford, the Peoria coach agreed to give the Aeros a few extra minutes, and as the clock ticked to zero, Barry Brust, who had suffered a deep slash of his thigh in the first period. He got about 30 stitches during the intermission, did a few butterflies to show he was capable of making the blocks and making the moves, then skated out to the ice and got the win, stopping 25 of the 26 shots he saw that night.
BEST ARENA ADDITION: Let's hear for the brass up in Minnesota for getting replays for every game played at Toyota Center, no matter when the game was played. In the past, we've been stuck with replays just on Friday and Saturday. But this year, we had them every game. So thank you.
WORST NON-TEAM DEVELOPMENT: For some reason, the number of Lady Dynamics dropped, and dropped, throughout the season. And I liked watching the Lady Dynamics. But I want to give my thanks to those young ladies who stuck it out for the whole season. Thank you.
BEST READERS: This is for the readers of T3I. Thanks for sticking with us all season. I apologize for not being around as much as last season, but hopefully the T3I supplied you with all of the information about the team that you needed, and wanted. Thanks for reading. We appreciate it.
BIGGEST T3I LOSS: Fred, we missed you this season. It wasn't the same without you around. I'm sorry I couldn't do more to help out.
Poor, unlucky bastards
Carson McMillan disappears in a fight vs. Gavin Morgan (Darren Abate photo)Good morning on this gloomy, first un-hockey day of the summer.
For many, the NHL playoffs will provide a little relief until the real, LONG part of the summer begins in mid June.
And for non New York Rangers fans, at least the warmer weather will lead to a few other outdoor activities that also help the passing of time.
If you are a Rangers fan, how do you like that shootout rule now? Shouldn't there be an amendment to go ahead and play playoff-style OT if there are absolute playoff implications on the line? We could debate on this one for hours ... what are your thoughts?
As for the game yesterday in San Antonio, I was there. I watched every second of the last game and was very impressed with Anton's game until the last minute. Like the Aeros Saturday night against Texas, the Rampage just wanted this one more. One more game for the home fans, and the crowd there (7,000-plus) was behind them all the way.
One of our rogue commenters wondered aloud why a team could allow 50+ shots in a game. Well, S.A. fired from all over the ice. Many, many of them were harmless, but late in the first, early in the second and early in the third, Anton had to make several HUGE plays to give the Aeros a chance. He allowed a big, fat rebound on a shot by Boedker, and had JP Testwuide been able to clear the puck, Turris doesn't get it and slam one in the net from point blank.
Testwuide's miscue (to be fair, it was not a glaring error, but he did have a chance to clear, and he did not do it) is the only reason Anton did not have a shutout through 40 minutes. Had he stopped Turris, it would have been the greatest period, statistically, a goalie ever had as a Houston Aero.
I think the Rampage fed off the bewilderment of the missed too many men call. The officials covered up the missed call by telling the Aeros that S.A. was offside on the previous play, and that is why the faceoff went to the other side of the ice. The Aeros did not have complete focus on in the final minute, and then Anton made a huge, huge mistake on the tying goal. He stopped the shot, but didn't sit on it. Instead, he lifted his glove up for a split second, and either an Aeros d-man or Hoggan rammed the puck into the net. I could not see real well from where I was, and initially, I thought Brett MacLean got it in.
Anyway, you guys know the rest of the story. KC made the gusty call to pull the goalie and go for the regulation win. I cannot think of another time where I saw an empty net goal in a tied game. When Gavin Morgan buried the 160-footer on the last shot of his career, the Aeros just looked around and shook there heads. For a team that seems so very poor at winning faceoffs, pulling the goalie with the game tied seemed and proved to be futile. I think the Aeros all knew what was going to happen when the Rampage tied the game, and the hockey gods smiled on Morgan, who is now officially retired from hockey and will hopefully never haunt the Aeros again.
Despite be so severely out-shot, the Aeros could have had a 2-0 or 3-0 lead after 40 minutes. But as has been the case so many times this year, they just could not bury more than one of their prime Grade-A chances. I think a lot of this has to do with having too many guys on the team that had no desire to ever be on the roster, or just too used to being a complement guy instead of being thoroughly replied upon.
My c0-MVPs for the year are JM Daoust and Maxim Noreau. A close runner up is Jon DiSalvatore ...
T3I will announce an Aeros award schedule soon, and we'll break down the season a little more in detail before we start preparing for 2010-11.
Sunday, April 11, 2010
A quick explanation: Aeros 2, Rampage 3
I didn't watch much of the game, so I'm not going to write it up properly (like I would anyway). I'd get on Khudobin for allowing that tying goal as he mishandled the puck as he was covering it with his glove... but he stopped a whopping 53 (!!!) shots in this game. He's allowed two goals against, I guess. ;)
And the game winner was an empty netter with :20 left in the tied game.
Folks freaked out in the chat on AHLLive at Constantine pulling Khudobin with less than a minute left in the game. Why would a coach pull the goalie in a tied game?
The reason is because the Aeros had 80 points, the Rampage had 82, which means the Aeros HAD to win in regulation to jump ahead of San Antonio in the standings. (Aeros get the tie breaker due to winning the season series between the two teams.)
So, don't flip out. He did the right thing. Alas, the boys couldn't hold 'em in and the Rampage nabbed the empty netter for the win, but the Aeros do finish at .500 for the season. Hey, that's better than all the other teams at the bottom of their divisions have done! Haha... Well, it's something.
The offseason has officially begun.
And the game winner was an empty netter with :20 left in the tied game.
Folks freaked out in the chat on AHLLive at Constantine pulling Khudobin with less than a minute left in the game. Why would a coach pull the goalie in a tied game?
The reason is because the Aeros had 80 points, the Rampage had 82, which means the Aeros HAD to win in regulation to jump ahead of San Antonio in the standings. (Aeros get the tie breaker due to winning the season series between the two teams.)
So, don't flip out. He did the right thing. Alas, the boys couldn't hold 'em in and the Rampage nabbed the empty netter for the win, but the Aeros do finish at .500 for the season. Hey, that's better than all the other teams at the bottom of their divisions have done! Haha... Well, it's something.
The offseason has officially begun.
Some Thoughts From Game 79
I've sat awhile tonight, wondering what to write about this last game (home game) of the season. Maybe I should have sat on my deck with a beer, like Heather, then again, seeing as how I live off of Milam, not far from a bunch of bars and clubs, sitting here, watching my tape delay of the Astros game (I wanted to hear how Jeff Bagwell did in the broadcast booth) and working on an unrelated assignment for the mothership, I still find myself unsure of just what to say, so here we go.
It's been a difficult season to cover the team. Not access wise. And the guys have always been willing to sit after a game and talk. It's just that it has been tough to write about them this year. There's been multiple games this season that have ended with the close loss. A close loss resulting from goalies that were perfect for just 58 minutes. Or from Aeros shots bouncing off of a post. The game the Aeros won 4-2 tonight was, in many ways, a perfect example of the type of games the Aeros have lost the entire season -- see that second period where they got off 24 shots but could only score once, then saw Texas score on two of their first four shots of the third period to take the lead.
******************
I'll probably do a proper write up later in the week -- Andrew's going to San Antonio tomorrow for that purpose, and hopefully I can get some stuff from him to use in the mothership, and here. So for now I'll just reference some other things from the game, and just throw out some general thoughts.
Heather referenced Carson McMillan's expression when he scored the go-ahead goal in the third. I spoke with him about that afterwards. What struck me about his response was that he wasn't trying to take credit for the goal. He thought it was a great shot by Jamie Fraser, and he wasn't going to take credit for the tip-in, but Duncan Milroy went up and told the officials that McMillan tipped it.
******************
Luke Strand was at the game, again, visiting with his friends Kevin Constantine and Troy Ward, and taking in the game. I talked to him a bit after the game, while the guys were out on the ice for the jersey auction. He was just amazed, after watching the team, that they were out of the playoffs. He just didn't see the quit that you normally see from a team that doesn't give a damn anymore. And there was the talk about what could have been as he noted the guys and goal scorers from last year's team that were no longer here, and just how different things could have been had they been here this year.
******************
Congratulations to Max Noreau for second team AHL. Maybe if certain people would have remembered to send the voting info to Andrew and myself -- as the guys in the past did -- he could have got up to first team. Still, Noreau's a class guy. He came up with a rocket shot, became a very good offensive defenseman, and this year worked on his defensive play. And just think of how bad the power play would have been without Noreau.
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The Aeros will finish the season with at least 80 points, and at least the .500 mark. And depending on what happens tomorrow, they might not even finish in last place. Not that that means anything other than the guys didn't quit.
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You guys have indulged me all year with my Beatles obsession. So as the season ends, I can think of no better way to close out than with my favorite song of all-time. So here's The Beatles with "Hey Jude."
It's been a difficult season to cover the team. Not access wise. And the guys have always been willing to sit after a game and talk. It's just that it has been tough to write about them this year. There's been multiple games this season that have ended with the close loss. A close loss resulting from goalies that were perfect for just 58 minutes. Or from Aeros shots bouncing off of a post. The game the Aeros won 4-2 tonight was, in many ways, a perfect example of the type of games the Aeros have lost the entire season -- see that second period where they got off 24 shots but could only score once, then saw Texas score on two of their first four shots of the third period to take the lead.
******************
I'll probably do a proper write up later in the week -- Andrew's going to San Antonio tomorrow for that purpose, and hopefully I can get some stuff from him to use in the mothership, and here. So for now I'll just reference some other things from the game, and just throw out some general thoughts.
Heather referenced Carson McMillan's expression when he scored the go-ahead goal in the third. I spoke with him about that afterwards. What struck me about his response was that he wasn't trying to take credit for the goal. He thought it was a great shot by Jamie Fraser, and he wasn't going to take credit for the tip-in, but Duncan Milroy went up and told the officials that McMillan tipped it.
******************
Luke Strand was at the game, again, visiting with his friends Kevin Constantine and Troy Ward, and taking in the game. I talked to him a bit after the game, while the guys were out on the ice for the jersey auction. He was just amazed, after watching the team, that they were out of the playoffs. He just didn't see the quit that you normally see from a team that doesn't give a damn anymore. And there was the talk about what could have been as he noted the guys and goal scorers from last year's team that were no longer here, and just how different things could have been had they been here this year.
******************
Congratulations to Max Noreau for second team AHL. Maybe if certain people would have remembered to send the voting info to Andrew and myself -- as the guys in the past did -- he could have got up to first team. Still, Noreau's a class guy. He came up with a rocket shot, became a very good offensive defenseman, and this year worked on his defensive play. And just think of how bad the power play would have been without Noreau.
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The Aeros will finish the season with at least 80 points, and at least the .500 mark. And depending on what happens tomorrow, they might not even finish in last place. Not that that means anything other than the guys didn't quit.
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You guys have indulged me all year with my Beatles obsession. So as the season ends, I can think of no better way to close out than with my favorite song of all-time. So here's The Beatles with "Hey Jude."
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