Aeros v. Bridgeport Sound Tigers - Game 16

Let's hit the superlatives first, shall we?

1. The Tigers are the ORANGEST team the Aeros have played all season. And their goalie, Peter Mannino, has the coolest pads. (Thanks to Fred Trask for the great photo in the link. The shrunken version was so ugly, I just decided to link directly to the image.)
   
2. My dear Brusty had the worst shootout I've ever seen a goalie have. And I watched every Wild game last season... a season in which Niklas Backstrom was the worst shootout goalie in the NHL. He let 4 of 4 in. I wonder if he slept at all last night. That's the shit that will haunt a guy. Calling Bob Mason STAT!
   
3. Most perfunctory, pathetic fight by two guys over 6'8" goes to John Scott v. Mitch Fritz. Boys, if you don't have the heart to fight, don't do it. That was a monumentally depressing display. So half-hearted, so spiritless, so useless. Granted, John did open up a cut on Fritz and after about 30 seconds there was blood streaming down Fritz's face as though someone had been throwing bricks at his head. But still. Lamest fight ever. And I've seen plenty of Voros fights so I know lame when I see it. Fred posted pictures of the gore here. Scotty's still a tasty dish though. Nice to see him back.
   
4. Huge block of the night went to Jason Ryznar who flopped himself on the ice as a Tiger player was winding up a big slapper and just totally blocked the shot with his body. That cannot have felt good, but damn if he didn't take one for the team there. That's heroic shit.
   
5. Nice thought/bad result of the night: Remember how I was saying the team was relying too much on Kolanos.... passing to him when he had two men on him vs. their one man? Well, add in an anonymous donor offering $400 to Houston Aeros Charities for a Kolanos hat trick after he got the two goals of the night.
   
   The game turned into "Get the puck to Krys" even worse than usual. I'm not saying it cost them the game like some believe, but it's a problem, last night and every night Kolanos is in the line-up. Of course, considering he's the only one who can score on some nights, the impulse is understandable, but these guys need to believe in their own ability to get the puck to the net.
   

Anyway, onward...

As I mentioned the two Aeros goals were from Kolanos. The first was a prototypical sharp angled roofer that Kolanos is so good at. Amazing how he gets those in. It's like there's some spot that every goalie isn't covering from that angle and he knows how to hit it.

The second was a spectacular give and go with Jesse Schultz that even had me dizzy, so I'm sure the goalie was just about coming out of his breezers trying to keep up with the play around him. Definitely check AHLLive.com for the highlights to see this goal (might take a couple of days for that to show up). It was most improbable.

Overall, I thought the team played well, particularly in the second period, where they seemed to know where their teammates were on the ice, passes were getting where they needed to be, guys were working as a unit. Defense looked as solid as it did back at the end of last season and in the first 11:30 of the second period, the Aeros held Bridgeport to only one shot on goal. They were clicking.

And then the donation was announced with 2:40 left in the second and it was pretty much downhill from there. I mean, yeah, they were killing penalties well (BTW, Kolanos had THREE minor penalties in the game) but they seemed to lose their focus and the domination of the second period was history. Blake Comeau popped one in, and then, during a 6 on 4 Bridgeport power play (goalie was pulled to get the 6th man out), Iggulden got one past Barry with 5 seconds left on the clock.

Both teams played well and hard in OT, but both defenses were on fire and kept the shot count to 1-0 in favor of the Aeros for the 5 minutes.

I almost don't even want to talk about the shootout, it was so painful. Brust, having looked SO good all game, couldn't have stopped a beach ball. Every one of them got past him like he was standing still. The Aeros got in 2 of the 4 attempts they made (Madsen and Locke potted theirs while Kolanos and Hamilton did not), but it wasn't enough.

It was a tough loss but Constantine was fairly optimistic afterward. Definitely a different disposition from the loss to the Baby Pens two weeks earlier where he was clearly troubled by the game.

Anyway, nice to have the boys home for a good long stretch and they don't seem to have the 07-08 team's problem of terrible games after a long layoff, so hopefully next Saturday's game will be the start of a good month-long run at home and some of the injured guys will be back on the ice.