HOUSTON, Texas – It took until the final weekend of play, but the Houston Aeros found enough life in the waning hours of the regular season to clinch a playoff berth. The team clinched on Friday, but it wasn’t until the final game on Sunday that they secured third place over the Rockford IceHogs.
The team will face the Peoria Rivermen in the first round starting tonight in Peoria and will have their hands full with a team on a hot streak and an NHL All-Star goalie, Manny Legace, between the pipes.
Photo by Jason Villanueva
“Ever since they got Legace they’ve been a great team. They were a good team before that, but he’s made them a better team,” said Aeros coach Kevin Constantine. “They’re probably the hottest team in our division down the stretch.”
The teams should be plenty familiar with each other, having met four times in the last month and will meet in the playoffs with relatively the same rosters.
While Peoria is well set in goal, the Aeros goalie corps has been decimated by injuries late in the season. Nolan Schaefer has been injured since late March and was still walking with a noticeable limp Sunday.
Meanwhile, Barry Brust was back in good form on Friday after a long injury, but went out in the third period with a similar injury, and Constantine said he doesn’t expect him back for at least the first round of the playoffs, maybe longer.
So that leaves second-year pro Anton Khudobin, who has been up from ECHL Florida since the beginning of March when the injury bug first bit Brust. He is 3-6-0-1, has a 3.04 GAA, and a 0.892 save percentage since the call-up.
Saturday, the Aeros signed Sebastien Centomo from CHL Laredo to back Khudobin up. Centomo has 12 career AHL games from 2005-06 and was a CHL All-Star in 2009.
On the flip side, the rest of the team has stayed relatively healthy later in the season, and with the Minnesota Wild missing the playoffs, the Aeros’ roster gets a boost from returning players.
Krys Kolanos was sent down for the final three games of the season and had an immediate impact, scoring 5 goals in two games over the weekend and rounding out a hat trick in the closing seconds of the regular season Sunday evening.
Photo by Jason Villanueva
Peter Olvecky and John Scott are both still officially with the Wild and both will need to be put on and clear waivers to return to the Aeros. It remains to be seen whether the team wants to risk losing either player in the effort to get them to Houston.
Regardless, with a 6-3 win over rival San Antonio Sunday, the team is heading into the playoffs on an uptick in confidence.
“For our psyche, it was definitely important to get a win,” defenseman Brandon Rogers told Houston media Sunday. “It’s kind of nice to have a positive.”
Other noteworthy items:
- Rogers was named the 2008-09 AHL Man of the Year winning the Yanick Dupree Memorial Award. Each of the 29 AHL teams elects a Man of the Year, which recognizes players who have made significant contributions to the community and charitable organizations, and one is chosen by the league for the Dupree.
- Corey Locke finished the season 8th in the league in scoring with 79 points and 4th in assists in 77 games.
- Kolanos had 31 goals and 51 points in 45 games. Had he not spent several long stretches with the Wild, he was on pace to be second in the league in goal scoring.
- Maxim Noreau ended the season tied for third in goals by defensemen.
- The Aeros are the only team to get into the playoffs with more goals against (230) than for (218). The team is third in the league on the power play and 6th on the penalty kill.
- 2008 Wild second round draft pick Marco Scandella joined the Aeros blue line on an amateur tryout and got his first professional game action Saturday night. He was joined by defenseman JP Testwuide, who just finished his season with the University of Denver.
Contact heather.galindo@prohockeynews.com. Contact the photographer at jason.villanueva@prohockeynews.com.
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