From the Rampage Desk: Week 10.1 - Return of the Moose

Fresh off an 0-5 homestand the beloved Rampage are headed north to Winnipeg to face the new incarnation of the Manitoba Moose. With injuries and losses piling up, our boys are backed into a corner and need to fight their way out.

News

- Gabe Beaupre was called up from the Komets yesterday afternoon for reasons unclear at this point.

- tigervixxxen, Evan from BSN and I got together Monday night to discuss all things Rampage on the latest edition of Talking the Avs.

- Nate and JP returned to the air Tuesday for Running with the Herd Live

- Topher from RWtH has his latest shot metrics article on the past few games. New added feature: He's putting up a TOI proxy using Corsi events, I think when we get larger and larger sample sizes this will really give an idea of who's getting the top minutes and who's riding the pine.

- Rampage Practice Report from Monday with guest stars Colin Smith and Joey Hishon

Injury Report

M-A Cliche is still out with UBI with no word on a possible return date or if he's on the trip

Duncan Siemens is out with a wrist/hand issue. I ran the latest practice video in slow motion (yeah, I go the extra mile for you, dear reader) and didn't see him on the ice

Beaupre's callup begs the question if another defenseman is now injured. In the aforementioned practice video I spotted Bigras, Clark, Z, Mase, Corbs and Hubie. No Noreau or Siemens. Now Max is a vet and plays a shitload of minutes so getting a maintenance day wouldn't be out of the ordinary. I guess we can hold out hope that Boop's callup is purely precautionary for now.

The Losing Streak

Some quick notes on the 0-5 homestand just dropped on the good folks of San Antonio compared to the rest of the season:

Goals per game, before 3.35 - during 2.00
Goals against per game, before 2.85 - during 3.60
Save%, before .917 - during .897
Shooting%, before 11.7 - during 7.3
PDO, before 103.3 - during 97.0
Shots per game, before 28.6 - during 27.4
Shots against per game, before 34.1 - during 35.0

So, the problem is they can't score or stop the puck, right? Digging a little deeper, the shots on goal haven't changed much, they're just not getting them in the net and the opponents are. If you believe that PDO equates to something like "luck" then the Rampage have been fortunate this season and all at once went to seriously unlucky. It's a bad stretch but they should regress upward a fair amount. Soon.

Recap: Sunday vs the Stars

Rampage came out with some good energy Sunday and had 6 of the first 7 shots on goal but took the rest of the period off and half of the 2nd before grabbing the momentum back. They played really well in the second half of the game but Hishon’s ridiculous turnover on the PP and one poor defensive shift by Dennis Everberg gave the Stars all they needed for the victory. On the bright side, there were some things to build on going forward. Some promising new lines blendered in and Cody Corbett was a revelation.

Corbett looked a thousand times better than last year, or more precisely he showed confidence and the good aspects of his game that we saw flashes of in Lake Erie while cutting way down on the bad. I’d like to see him stay with the team if the staff can find some PT for him. He’s already matched Labrie’s point total for the season and is no worse defensively. He and Bigras had instant chemistry on the power play that San Antonio badly needs right now.

Coach Dean’s interview after the game was very candid, saying that the team is weak down the middle and it’s really hurting play all around.

Preview: Manitoba

Fun fact: The Manitoba Moose are the only team to ever beat the Lake Erie Monsters in a playoff series

Save for Iowa, the Manitoba Moose are the worst team in the WC. They sport a 6-14-3 record and score less than 2 goals a game while giving up more than 3. WE SHOULD BEAT THEM. This is Calvin's hometown and he's pretty jacked up about playing, everyone else should be too.

There's a little uncertainty with the injury questions but this is what rolled out Sunday:

Aggz/Hish/Mikko
Evs/Smitty/Pete
Schumi/Sam/Borna
Bordy/Cheek/Mags

Bigras/Clark
Z/Max
Corbs/Hubie

Picks
Roman

Scratched: Bourke (nacho), Mason (nacho), Cliche (UBI), Duncan (UBI)

Hish and Smitty swapped back and forth a little bit, perhaps just giving different looks. I can't say it was extremely effective but I think it did give Dean some situational flexibility. Borna took over for the truggling Reid Petryk on the 2nd midway through the game but it didn't help much. Obviously there's no reason Maggio should be playing even with Bourke fairly ineffective lately. I'd honestly like to see Bourke at center on the 4th because Cheek just isn't getting it done in the middle. Like I say every week, no reason Hubert Labrie should be in the game unless it's an emergency.

Schedule

Wednesday night at Manitoba 8:00pm in the ET

Thursday night at Manitoba 8:00pm in the ET

All games on Ticket 760

Links

Stats

Standings

Preview

Next up

Sunday/Monday against Iowa

* * * * *

Tonight's game is free from conflict with the Avs and tomorrow's starts an hour before the Avs take on NYI