Aeros v. Manitoba Moose - Game 22

I sighed as the second period had been underway for nearly 4 minutes, the Moose were up on the Aeros 1-0, and said, "We're never going to score, are we?"

And then not 2 seconds later, angels sang, a beam of sunlight parted the clouds, and Kolanos got the puck at the Manitoba blue line, jetted to the net with one desperate defenseman on his heels, fired a shot, and then banged in his own rebound behind the sprawling goalie.

And then just in case we all thought it was just Kolanos being Kolanos, Noreau got one past the Moose goalie less than 2 minutes later.

And then just in case we all thought the Aeros were gonna have to cling to a one goal lead like grim death for the next 35 minutes, Schultz jumped off the bench on a line change to pick up the puck at the Moose blue line and went right to the net, with only one hand on his stick, slightly out of control and looking very much like he was going to lose the puck behind the net, and popped it in over a very surprised goalie's blocker.

And so end the highlights. Oh wait, the first period was very strong by both teams, especially on special teams, and Kassian beat the tar out of Desbiens at the beginning of the second. Those were nice.

THAT ends the highlights.

From there it was crazy stuff like Lammers getting a boarding major and game misconduct, Lundbohm pulling a groin, and Hamilton going in for an open ice hit but finding himself face down and motionless (and me hiding behind my hands saying, "Please don't be dead. Please don't be dead." Nothing takes the fun out of hockey like a dead guy on the ice.)

Those three things shortened the bench by 3 forwards with plenty of game left to play. Add in some untimely penalties, and the beginning of a 4 goal streak by the Moose, and the Aeros were left depleted and discombobulated. You could see them clearly falling apart after the Moose tied it up at 9:49 into the third.

And it just kept getting worse with a go-ahead goal one minute later on a breakaway, which Constantine blamed on Mojzis (who, I have to say, isn't knocking my socks off so far, but I'm willing to give him time to adjust to his new team). Passes weren't connecting, it was every man for himself-frantic scramble-desperate-and-foolish time.

Constantine pulled Schaefer with around 3 minutes left during a Manitoba penalty and they made quick work of potting an empty netter as soon as the penalty ended.

I like this unsung hero thing so I'm giving it to John Scott tonight. He stayed out of the box and made some really nice, heads-up plays, didn't try to do too much, just played a solid game on a night when things went cattywhompus in a pretty severe way.

I'm also convinced that Krys Kolanos has a nearly pathological hatred of losing. You could see him thisclose to spontaneous combustion as he watched the team around him tighten the grips on their sticks and stop playing good hockey. And he worked that much harder to keep everyone in the game, but it just wasn't going to happen.

Scratches were Love, Rogers (injured), and Olvecky (injured).

That's enough for tonight. Here's Andrew's Chron article, Royal's blog, and maybe Fred will bless us with some photos, which I'll link here.

Goodnight!

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Bonus: If you ask me, Cuthbert should have stuck with Komisarek. I'm just saying.