Hamilton 4 Rampage 3 with pics

Well, well, well, Houser racing Leblanc to the front his net. Will he make it?

Ortmeyer and Mayer tete a tete-wonder what they chat about?

Major traffic jam in front of Mayer

ONE way to protect your goalie by bending to the ice? (#4)Drewisky invents new defense ;-)

Rampage versus Admirals

Now you all enjoy a good, fluid game, right? Well if you do, you ought to have been in San Antonio on Sunday!

Both teams came out burning with zest. 

The first period seemed to just melt away, even though neither scored a goal. 14 sogs per side, and both goalies stepped up to keep the puck from going into the net.
Rampage have a new head coach,

 and he sure seems to dare the team to  do better.
And they did, in the 2.period.
Nr. 13 Pinizzotto (13 must have been HIS good luck number?) scored, then our old friend Ortmeyer made it two soon after, followed by a scuffle in which Crabb (Rampage) turned real crabby :-). 
Alas, the PP ensuing allowed the Admirals Rodney to sore 1 for the Ads.
And so we went into the 3. 2 Rampage 1 Admirals. At about 7 minutes into the 3. Moser evened the score for the Admirals. And that was it. Overtime-no goal. Shoot out-and that's were the more experienced Dov Grumet Morris had the advantage over the youngster Magnus Hellberg, at 22 almost 10 years younger. Grumet Morris stopped all attempts by Admiral players.
But - credit is due to Hellberg, he ONLY let in one. Which was the decider by Matsumoto, who scored on the first attempt.  The other 4 did not.

Hellberg

Grumet Morris doings splits

Following the puck

Grumet Morris named 1. *, Hellberg 2. * and Matsumoto 3. * of  the game.

Blond 9'5 tall Magnus (well named, eh?)

And that was as it should have been.  Hellberg had 43 saves, which IMO not a bad result fro a youngster - note I am a bit biased, I do like young blond giants ;-)!
Grumet Morris had 31 saves.
Both team hamster'ed 5 penalties and thus 5 PP, but only Rodney (Ads) was able to convert the advantage to a goal. Two refs kept the progress of the game swift and after 2 1/2 hours the approx. 7200 loyal fans went home (?) satisfied.


Ortmeyer in perfect position

A minor scuffle-Watson argues with  Pinizotto?

A win, a couple of scuffles,an OT and a SO.. the heart just has to jump for joy in hockey fans!
And  for us, we spent the Monday  enjoying a beautiful sunrise:

and on leisurely nature trail walks looking at Mother Nature's fall bounty :-) .

 Tuesday dawned with gusts of winds but 62 degrees, while travelling a bit North of SA to Texas Hills winery, we shivered in 48 degrees. Fortunately the temps warmed up a bit as we returned south to I-10 and drove eastward, even the sun peeked out at times. Still the wind was strong and big cars weaved on the road. We,  sitting low and loaded down with wine (lol) rode somewhat better :-)!

And then there were none... goals that is for the Rampage

Yes Sir, I know its a bottle, next time it'll be a puck, one of 39!

Lieuwen at work

Yes, it's true, yesterday's game Rampage vs Rochester ended in a Shut out 3-0 for the visitor from the East. Who had some dedicated Sabre Jersey clad Fans in the audience, right behind the Amerks' bench..
Nathan Lieuwen cold stopped Rampage's 39 shots on goal, 10 if which have to be credited a very busy Ortmeyer.

Melee-just one of many in front of Lieuwen

Ortmeyer at work

 Back soon where he usually is.. Orty

BTW Orty was were he could do the most damage - that is in front of Lieuwen, but the Amerks defense and Lieuwen was just too good. 

Orty hurt?

At one time Orty looked hurt.. but was back in the blink of an eye and back in front of the net of Lieuwen.

Timmins

Timmins at face off

A wide awake and sober (Lol) Timmons (32) nailed face off after face off (photos above).

Gauthier-Leduc (34) to Gomes (12): "Hey, bud get off our goalie !" :-) it was that kind of game!

Barlow (10) skated like pursued by the devil during periods 1 and 2, but lost steam in the 3.
He also was the lucky (lol ?) winner of the most PIMs ;-). 
Sadly, most of the Rampage players seemed uncoordinated, skated, while not exactly sluggishly, certainly less energetic, missed passes..etc.
The only reason, Rampage did not loose with more goals against was entirely due to the efforts of Grumet-Morris - he did some great saves. He DID stop 9 in the 1, 5 in the 2. and all 8 in the 3.

And Rampage ought to have made some goals, the way Ortmeyer was present with his 10 shots on goal ,  Timmons had  5.

Grumet Morris save in 1.

Grumet Morris save in 3.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

High Fives, y'all.

Leggio observing :-) Dov

Other observations:
Leggio (not in net this time) certainly had a grandstand view of the opposing goalie.

Helmet malfunction for Rochester-this game:-)

Got my helmet back ;-)! - no, really - a high stick save by Lieuwen!

And finally, a Leggio  rather chummy with Koharski,
the, oh so unbiased (at times-lol) ref.

Did he thanked him for officiating so well (?) at both games this weekend -just kidding!

NO sunshine tonight

Sprawling did not help tonight

First OKC Goal in the 2. period opened floodgates

Even though the sunshine kid, Darcy Kuemper, managed to stop 23 of 29 shots the OKC Barons threw at him in front of close to 11,000 'fans' .. Yann Danis got the shut out winner of OKC 6 Aeros 0!


Despite the fact that Ortmeyer WAS back.
Despite the fact the the 1. Period started rather promising. So promising in fact, that I turned to Better Half and commented: "Well, sure looks like the guys came out full of pep tonight. Maybe all due to the Hot and Spicy Texas Caviar (Black eyed Peas.. a tradition at New Year's Eve Parties down here in the South)".

It was however the OKC Barons who spiced up the game...skating well, passing well, penalty kill well done, and making 4 of 9 7 PP opportunities count, plus 2 goals on 5 on 5. And badgering Kuemper who, it must be said, let in 2 that could have been stopped - and he did try - throwing himself into it (see pic).

Despite the fact, that some like Foucault, Rau, Fontaine skated like the devil were after them..
But some of the blame lies squarely with the less than stellar performance of the defense, the offense... two major penalties for fighting did not improve the game, except of course fired up the audience.

A stickless Almond keeps on skating ;-0.

I  do not really like fighting, but the Almond/Ringwald bout was IMO "legal".
Ringwald, not just once, but several times pulled the 'waiting forever behind his own net' trick to delay the game once too often to suit Almond. Why was there No penalty 'delay of game'?
Maybe because it's a newish thing and neither NHL (where it started) nor AHL have decided on how to regulate that.
Well whatever, Almond hot-headily started to 'regulate' on his own, and the fans approved! Those fans, that booed loudly every time Ringwald pulled that ruse!

Linesman holding Tremblay, to save Broda :-)!

The second fight between Tremblay and Broda, alas, ended with Broda subdued and loosing.
Which he seems to be prone to as seen in his previous fights.
Why start a fight when the outcome is negative? A Kassian he is not!

Desperate Measures to keep the puck away?

Despite the fact that in the 3. a bit more pep was shown by Aeros getting off 11 sogs.. all of which Yann Danis stopped handily-with the help of some outstanding defense, I must admit.

Final Assault - in vain - no, single, honor goal for Aeros

And insured that their coach Todd Nelson will be Head Coach for the Western Conference at the All Star AHL Classic Game in Atlantic City. That could have been a HUGE spur for the Barons, especially after their loss 3-4  to the Rampage at Cox Center Dec. 31.

It was NOT a pretty game. It was NOT an exciting game.
You know like some games win OR loose are exciting.
It was a poorly played, disorganized game on the Aeros part, IMO.
And resembled a sacrifice of the innocent ="sunshine kid'!

Enuf said!
Guys, Aeros you need to play more consistent.

One down - 75 to go!

It seemed a bit deja vu... didn't it? 

When Nr. 17 Casey Wellman faced down Matt Climie Nr 33 in goal for Chicago,
Wellman got 2 goals on Climie - not quite a repeat of that other game.
But exciting enough to keep us on the edge of our seats ...will he make a Third goal and get another hat trick?
Now that would have started the season off with a real bang.
Nevertheless, the game progressed nicely.






Goal One

From a reasonable (10 SOG  by Aeros vs 5 by Wolves), but scoreless First by both teams, the Aeros went gungho in the second with 20 Shots on Goal vs 8 by Chicago, scoring 2 goals in rapid succession by Wellman 17 (Helpers Taffe 22, Penner 5 and then McMillan 27) - later 1 by Ortmeyer, prominently wearing 41 (must remember that number change from 22 to 41), with Peters 25 and Foucault 13 assisting.

Matt Hackett keeping Chicago scoreless through 2 periods....and getting us to believe in a shut out!



 Goal 3 -Fans Happy

But no, Chicago came howling back in the third with 12 SOG vs  Aeros with just 4..one of which however was goal Nr. 4 by DiSalvatore 14 with Foucault 13 and Taffe 22.

Chicago Goal-fans unhappy!

The lone Chicago goal came at about 4 minutes into 3rd. by Mancari with Doell and Polasek..

 And at least twice it looked to me as if Mancari could have slipped the puck into Aeros net again! Were it nor for Hackett stopping 24 of 25 SOG..
whose glove catching facility has immeasurably improved over the summer! 
And Climie had to eat the loss with 30 stops of 34 SOGs.
Team Chicago a bit disconcerted by Aeros efforts needed 2 periods to regroup!


Sauve couldn't save...Last Aeros Goal

Was the two Too many men on ice, and one Delay of game penalties for the Aeros just a sign of a newly gungho team spirit? All those new Aeros raring to go?

Whatever it was, Chicago was unable to use the 9 penalty opportunities,

while Houston made 2 of their 7 count.

Three Stars of the Game were all Aeros:

Casey Wellman Nr.1,

DiSalvatore Nr.2 and

Rookie Foucault Nr.13.

 Kris Foucault 13, and Nystrom 23 skated well and fast with a certain "turn on a dime" agility which looked so easy.

Peters on the Draw



Caught me a Puck!


Peters, Rau and McMillan did most of the face off honors.

Two melees...at one time

Ortmeyer helps stop the puck!

Prosser 15, Palmer 19 and Taffe 22 played a very solid game.

Rau had some nifty moves as did Wellman.

Joel Broda

Hendry 24 and Broda 56 appear to have taken on the Kassian mantle!

Genoway 39 was somewhat invisible.

Early on Cuma 61 took quite a while to right himself after a collision near the bench.



Team speed and passing, plus puck possession seemed rather improved - but it is early yet!

Over all this first regulation game of the season was up tempo and exciting to watch by almost 10,000 fans!