Gameday Preview: Stars v. Houston Aeros

Texas Stars
2-1-0-0, 4 pts
#7 Western Conference
v.Houston Aeros
1-2-0-0, 0 pts
#11 Western Conference
October 20th at 7:00 PM
Cedar Park Center, Cedar Park, TX

Texas will try to shake off last night's 5-1 loss as the two squads face off again tonight, this time in Cedar Park.

Last night's game spoke directly to the heart of the AHL. It was a night for rookies, both in good and bad ways. Rookies Charlie Coyle, Zack Phillips and Alex Chiasson all had goals in the game.

On the other hand, three rookie errors led directly to Houston goals. Oleksiak and Nemeth's defensive pairing got caught at the blue line for the 3rd goal and Oleksiak gave away the puck directly to Phillips for the 4th. The fifth goal against was immediately off a faceoff in the final minute with Alex Chiasson in the box for a slashing call clearly taken out of frustration.

Texas, in the past, has had a roster that skewed more to the veteran side of things. The club has never had this many pure rookies on the roster in its four years. That means two things. First, it means that many of these dynamic players are going to have amazing nights and could potentially put up numbers that will blow away previous records. Second, it means there will be some growing pains on team defense for sure. Coach Willie Desjardins is used to molding young minds though, as he did just that with 16 year olds in the WHL for many years.

In summary, last night was no reason to panic. The season is not going down the tubes. Some nights, all the bad shows up and none of the good. You have to take both at the beginning in hopes that the good outweighs the bad by the time the stretch run comes.

Otherwise, previous rotations suggest that Jack Campbell will get tonight's start, especially after the rough outing that Nilstorp had last night. Something to watch for: will Scott Glennie play his first game of the season? Austin Smith rotated in last night and the Stars lost. That wasn't Smith's fault, but coaches are a superstitious bunch, so I wouldn't be surprised if Austin Smith came out in favor of any of the remaining forwards: Vause, Tousignant or Glennie. Remember that Texas won its first two with Tousignant and Vause in the lineup, respectively.

Stars injury/call up report:
Sceviour (injury)

Website: aeros.com
Blog (official): Pilot to Gunner
Blog (unofficial): The Third Intermission
Twitter: @Houston_Aeros
Twitter: @aero_joe (play-by-play)
Twitter: @TheJoshFisher (PR)

Comments

  1. I can solve the mystery on Glennie if people would like but not sure I should say

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's up to you, but there are a lot of curious people out there...

      Delete
  2. Lets just say that if someone were a victim of their own naivete and trusted the wrong teammate and all conversations that were meant to be confidential were relayed back to the team management, what do you think might happen??

    ReplyDelete

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