Aeros v. Dunder Mifflin Penguins - Game 38; Scotty makes his NHL debut

Unfortunately, AHLLive was having issues with transmitting the image for a good half of the game, so it was mostly audio for this game.

But that didn't stop the game from starting out with plenty of punch. Kassian and Bissonnette dropped the mitts on the faceoff. It was so fast, I missed it because I hadn't put my earbuds in yet so I missed the first couple of minutes. I'll have to go look at it on the archives tomorrow morning to see how that one went.

Then after that was sorted out, Love and Boogaard The Lesser dropped the mitts on the very next faceoff. Literally, the fighting penalties were at 0:01 and 0:02. Never seen that before.

Irms started the scoring with a beautiful give and go with Locke that Irmen just fired top shelf over Curry's glove. Really pretty and nice to see Irms come alive lately.

The power play was rough tonight, yet the boys rocked out a delayed penalty and kept the puck moving nicely without allowing a touch-up by the Pens for a good 30 seconds. Not sure why they could pull that off and not the PP, but whatever.

Here's what's so frustrating about this team. Schultz got the second goal and my first thought was, "Oh crap, the Aeros have a two-goal lead. Now they're gonna get blown out." Sure enough, 2 minutes later, the baby Penguins scored.

And to make matters worse, the Aeros then went on a penalty spree getting four in fairly close succession. That's tired minds and bodies at play there, but it netted the Aeros 5 shots to Scrantonicity's 17 shots in the second period. Woof.

The Pens tied it up at 12:22 in the third as Brust was unable to clear the puck cleanly. But then he stood on his head to keep the tie into and through overtime. Since I couldn't see the game, I can't speak to how good the chances were for the Aeros during the third, but it looks like they were outshot a bit.

Also couldn't see the shootout but I'm guessing there was lots of dekeing and irritating stuff like that, and Schaefer did a good job but the Aeros just found the iron too often. (Kolanos failed on his shootout attempt with Minnesota tonight, just to keep it consistent.) I'm waiting for the game where Brust gets a shutout in the first 65 minutes, and then Schaefer wins the shootout. I wonder if two goalies have ever been named stars of the same game.

Anyway, the boys skate away with a point. And I've been saying they get a break starting tomorrow, but I goofed when I put the schedule into my Outlook calendar and missed entering tomorrow's game in Providence at 3 Central. So... make that 8 games in 10 days. Ridiculous! Good on the boys for hanging in there thus far. I hope the measely two days of rest on Monday and Tuesday are genuinely restful.

Same group that's been out was still out, which, since all but Rosa aren't on the trip, I'll just say Rosa was scratched.

Brusty got the second star for his 65 minutes of play. Sucks that Schaefer keeps getting stuck with the SO losses.

---------------------
Scotty played his first NHL game tonight, which was pretty exciting. They even interviewed him for the Detroit broadcast (which is all that was showing on CI, unfortunately... jesus what a bunch of pretentious hosers their announcers are!) and showed that during the second intermission. He looked just sublimely happy with a tinge of "holy crap!" around the edges.

Anyway, it was awesome to see the big guy up there. He only played about 6 minutes and 6 shifts, and I suspect, looking at his TOI, that he's going to get a talking to about shortening his shifts.

Also a couple of cool pictures of Cal and Krys in the game photos here.