Aeros v. Lake Erie Monsters - Game 45

I'm really tired and it's really early in the morning, and Royal did a great job writing up the game, plus Mr. Awesome gave him a great picture of the game winning goal celebration. You don't see Ryznar or Kassian in those too often so go look at that and soak it up.

Royal's blog
Andrew's Chron article

Just a few extras:
I was tres impressed with the domination of the Aeros today. I don't believe we've seen this kind of puck possession all season. But I'm going to resist the urge to say they've turned a corner of some sort. The Monsters were on game 4 of 4 games in 5 days, so they were tired and kind of resorted to the dumping and chasing required to just hold the offensive zone. Definitely a hard fought game on their part.

And Monster's goalie Tyler Weiman was off the hook. It would have easily been 6-1 with a lesser goalie in the net. His positioning is just spectacular because he wasn't making much in the way of dramatic saves. He was just always in front of the puck. I thought he deserved the #2 star. I'm not sure I understand why Schaefer got a star at all. Should have been 1-Ryznar, 2-Weiman, 3-Schultz.

In the picture on John's blog, you can see Kassian's "I lost the bet this month" mustache. *sigh* Why do these good looking guys do this to themselves? Here's hoping his month of 'stachedness is over soon.

Pouliot was alternatingly quite good and quite frustrating. Definitely peppier and more involved than Friday night, which was good to see. He had a few quite good opportunities on goal, but couldn't convert. But, when he hits the blue line and there's a d-man after him, it's still just, "Oh sorry, was this puck yours? My bad. Here ya go!" Though at one point, he had a big shot on goal and Weiman froze the puck, and they played Marilyn Manson's Beautiful People and I had to agree with John that it's a great choice for Ben's "theme song." Though it was probably just a coincidence.

I'm delighted for the 4th line boys. They dominated this game for the Aeros and I'm glad one of them got the big prize out of the effort, though ideally, it would have been a Ryznar goal with assists from Kassian and Love. But I'll take whatever.

I have to wonder if the knowledge of how short on forwards the Wild are right now has guys playing 110% right now. It's really a crap shoot as to who the call up would be, at least from where I sit. I wonder how long this delicate balance will last? Probably not into next weekend, unfortunately.

Healthy scratches were Mike Hamilton (who I suspect has the most to lose from the Pouliot demotion, besides Pouly himself, of course) and John Adams. Still injured and out are Stoner, Rosa, and Lammers.

Next game isn't until Friday night when the Aeros have back-to-back games at home against the Peoria Rivermen. Notable about these games is the return of Matt Foy to the Toyota Center. Mothers, hide your daughters. Fathers, lock the liquor cabinet.

After the game Friday will be a fun amateur USA vs. Canada game that a bunch of my teammates are playing on, so that should be a laugh if you want to stick around after the Aeros game and take in some more hockey.