Aeros v. Hamilton Bullpups - Game 11 (Updated)

Here's a great pic of Jesse Schultz from the game tonight. Thanks to MattJohnsonFan for sharing these!

I will say this... I went to dinner at Houston's tonight and had the French Dip. One guess as to what we jokingly call that dish...

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Okay, finally sitting down after a busy, stressful morning. More on that later.

The Aeros 3-1 win over Hamilton last night left me with the following primary thoughts:

1. I'm surprised they won. Last year's Aeros were atrocious after 4 game-less days. And the team had a few new guys in the line-up, one of whom (John Scott) was coming off a long, untested injury. The other being Valette, who is up on a PTO. And the Aeros are missing Krys Kolanos, who was on an impressive 5 goal streak before being called up to the Wild. AND, Hamilton is a good team with an 8-3-1-0 record and playing at home.
   
   BUT, they did have Locke and Hamilton back in the line-up, lots of rested bodies, and a pretty bad taste from Sunday's game lingering in their mouths for 4 days. Maybe I shouldn't have been surprised.
   
2. Neither team played as well as they can in the first two periods. Very sloppy, lots of turnovers, lots of bouncing pucks, lots of missed passes. Both teams were lucky that the frumpy play was going both ways, otherwise, someone was gonna get blown out. Yet both teams showed good hustle and emotion all game. Just one of those games.
   
3. This Aeros team is figuring out defense. Slowly but surely. You could see it in the way they defended in the third period after the second Aeros goal. It was clearly, "We have this. We have to keep it." Reminiscent of last year's team (in a good way).
4. It felt weird to be playing against Shawn Belle. Valette laid a HUGE hit on him that sent him flying early in the first period. Then later in the game, he and Scotty had some words. That's just one of those parts of the game that's hard to reconcile sometimes. I liked Belle, for better or worse, though I like having Locke on the team more, but it's still just weird. And I'm sure it was weird for Locker, too, going back to Hamilton and facing off against so many of his friends.
   
5. Stick penalties were a problem for the Aeros, with 6 hooking or tripping infractions and only 3 for Hamilton. At least Scotty only got one of them.
6. Antti made it extra special to win this game. Thanks man! You just keep testing the hockey gods!
7. Brusty looked rusty to start, but got his groove on soon enough, though he certainly induced a few near-heart attacks with his aggressive style... gotta get used to that again--as much as I enjoy it, it's still kind of a white-knuckle ride with that guy.
   
8. The Aeros out-physicaled (apparently that's a word, according to my spell check... really thought it might not be) the Dogs in the third, especially after the second goal. Never the less, I miss Cal.

Beyond that, if you want the goal-by-goal perspective, read this and this. (And FTR, who gets upset when a team can't get longer than a 4 game win streak? Is that really something to get down on a team about? Especially when you've had 3 such streaks this early in the season? SRSLY!)

A few more things:

• Lundy was still wearing the C. Is it a perma-C? We'll C. Heh.
• Dear Hamilton Bulldogs Video Crew: Please WIPE THE LENS on your center ice camera! It's filthy!
• Seems Olvecky got hurt early in the game and is DTD for now.
  
• The Chron write-up doesn't say it but Ryan Hamilton's goal was a beauty... nice breakaway up the middle with two defensemen trying to backcheck and failing. One of those God Bless Hockey moments. Especially coming from a guy like Hamilton who usually does his best work right around the net.
• Three stars were: 1- Hamilton, 2- Brust , 3- Lehoux (Le WHO??)
• Tonight the Aeros face the Rochester Americans, who, um, aren't exactly setting the world on fire. But they do have Riley Emmerson now. That could be interesting.
  

Can you tell I've been in training for work all week? Technical writers think in bulleted and numbered lists, ya know.