Another fantastic night of hockey in the Alamo City. The hometown Rampage put another whipping on the Aeros (boxscore) and are now, for the time being, the best team in the AHL. Ignore the fact they have played more games than all the other teams within a couple of points. It just feels good to say that for once.
The first period was, for lack of better terms, not good. The Aeros scored just 27 seconds in on a horribly blown assigment, leading to an easy goal. The Rampage also seemed to be on a perpetual penalty kill for the first 8 minutes.
Then, the power play kicked in as Tim Stapleton put a one timer, low and hard, past the stick side of Aeros goalie Matt Hackett. After the Aeros added a power play goal of their own, the Rampage would answer with their 2nd power play tally of the night on rookie defenseman Michael Stone's first professional goal with under a minute to go in the period.
The Rampage were outshot 19-8 and outplayed badly at times in the first 20 minutes. They were lucky to have gone to the locker room with a 2-2 tie.
In the 2nd, the ice shifted. The Rampage were the aggressor and the line of Ryan Hollweg, newcomer Jed Ortmeyer, and Colin Long started throwing their weight around and forechecking the bejesus out of the hapless Aeros. About 12 minutes in, the aggressiveness paid off. While killing a penalty, Viktor Tikhonov, on an aggressive forecheck, forced Hackett into a bad mistake and made him pay with a shorthanded wrap around goal to put the Rampage up 3-2.
Alex Picard would then add to the lead with the Rampage's 3rd power play goal of the night putting home a one timer from the right circle on an absolute beauty of a cross ice pass from Matt Beaudoin. The Rampage would take a 4-2 lead into the 2nd intermission.
Less than a minute into the 3rd, Brett MacLean scored his first even strength goal of the season, 4th overall, by doing what he does best. After receiving a pass to gain the zone from Mikkel Boedker, MacLean drove the net and popped in his own rebound to give the Rampage a commanding 5-2 lead. It was also Boedker's second assist on the night.
Rampage goalie Matt Climie would shut the door the rest of the way making several routine saves and a couple more outstanding stops when the Aero's really started pushing the play.
Thoughts
- Jed Ortmeyer was impressive in his first action with the team after signing a deal earlier in the day. Aggressive forechecking, hitting people, and putting pucks on net. Hopefully he keeps it up.
- Adding to the ridiculous rash of injuries, Nolan Yonkman left the game midway through the 1st period with an undisclosed injury and would not return.
- Since I brought it up in a previous post, the Rampage have really put the clamps down in the 3rd period. In the last 5 games, the Rampage have outscored opponents 8-1 in the 3rd period.
- The team is full of streaks right now. 6 game winning streak being the most important. Also streaking are Rampage players Matt Beaudoin (6), Viktor Tikhonov (5) and Alex Picard (5) are all riding current point streaks.
- With his 2 assists last night, Garrett Stafford is now tied for the lead in scoring among AHL defensemen with 10 pts. (2g-8a)
- The team sure looks like they are having fun. Tikhonov was very loose and goofy during his postgame "1st Star of the Game Interview" and there were smiles and whooping all over the Rampage bench during the game.
- On a personal note, my wife won her second game worn jersey raffle in as many years last night, winning Colin Long's "Face Off Against Kids Cancer" jersey from last season. She has now won 2, and I have won zero, missing the ticket by one number 2 times.
The team is now off until next Wednesday when they take on the Toronto Marlies at the AT&T Center. Sure would be nice to give them a nice mid-week crowd to show our appreciation. So bring the kids out and watch a team really starting to gel and play exciting hockey.
See you at the rink and LET'S GO RAMPAGE!!
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