The beloved Rampage close out the 2015-16 campaign with a road game at Texas tonight and a home game Friday vs the Manitoba Moose. If they win both, they could end up at .500 and as high as 5th in the Pacific and 10th in the Western Conference. Yowza!
News
- Garrett Thompson was released from his PTO Friday and returned to Ft Wayne. Troy Bourke joined him on Sunday.
- Andrew Agozzino rejoined the team after closing out the NHL season with the Avalanche. He appears to be the only one returning.
- Topher from RWtH returned to shot-count duty against the Wild on Saturday, you can find his report here
- I promised highlights from Saturday's game so here they are. Take a look, every goal is fantastic.
Injury Report
From Dan Weiss' practice notes today it sounds like everyone is healthy or nearly so
Mat Clark missed the past couple games with UBI suffered against San Jose
Michael Schumacher has been skating for a while in NC gear but is now a full participator
Taylor Beck has missed all but 2 games with LBI since coming over at the trade deadline from Bridgeport
Bordy has been out for a while with an undisclosed injury
Komets
The Komets announced their playoff roster Tuesday, of interest:
Avs Contracts - Bourke, Cheek, Beaupre, Corbett, Martin, Meurs (reserve), Geertsen (eligible)
Rampage Contracts - Hamonic, Weber, Thompson, Belzile (eligible)
Blake Sebring's latest Inside the Zone previews the K's 1st round series vs Cincinnati that begins on Friday night
Recap: Iowa
The Rampage didn’t deserve a point, much less a win, in Friday's game but somehow managed to claw one out. Borna Rendulic had a whale of a game scoring the game-tyer with 20 seconds to go as well as assisting on the other 2. The first period was dominated by Iowa but Berra’s 15 saves kept it scoreless. From then on the teams traded shots and goals evenly through OT and Ben Street scored the lone shootout goal for the victory.
Borna had his second really solid game in a row. I said a month ago that he should make it a point to get 5 SOG every game and if so would become an extremely effective scorer. We haven’t seen that but he’s definitely woken up… Matt Clark’s late scratch shuffled the pairings. Duncan and Gorms couldn’t figure who should play RD at first, Max and Mason have played a bunch lately so that was decent and Nate Guenin continued his mentor role with young Sergei Boikov… Boikov looked great for his first pro game. Wasn’t over his head, made some nice passes and stayed where he was supposed to be all night. Coach Dean seemed impressed with the youngster in his post-game comments too. Very promising start… Hish scored a fantastic goal thanks to some hard work from Rendulic and a beauty of a pass from Drazenovic. The camera was aimed right at his shooting lane and you knew it was in before he even shot it… Big Sam Henley scored his 7th of the year early in the 3rd. Good to see him get on the board again… Other than one tough 42 second stretch in the 3rd Yogi was really good, making up for copious dumb turnovers and ineffective breakouts all night.
The disturbing trend of letting up a goal on the 1st shift continued Saturday, but the other trend of coming back to win also continued, which is nice. After a listless performance in the first ten minutes Coach Dean fired the team up during a TV timeout and they responded with Garry Nunn scoring a fantastic 1v1 goal. They dominated the 2nd, outshooting the Wild 12-6 and tying the game up on a highlight reel goal from Ben Street. The Wild went ahead via the power play from a questionable call on Mikko Rantanen but for the 2nd night in a row SA tied the game in the final minute on a ridiculous howitzer shot from the point by Mikko. For the 2nd time this season, Garry Nunn won the game in OT.
Gary Nunn’s 2 goals led the way, he now has 12 points in 14 games. Get this guy an AHL deal right now, he’s been amazing and not only that he’s been consistent… Mikko’s dramatic game-tying goal gave him 23 for the season along with 59 points in 50 games, 6th in the league… Joey Hishon had 3 assists and is playing some of the best hockey of his career in the past few weeks… Regular night at the office for Ben Street, a goal and an assist, 4 SOG… Nate Guenin assisted on the OT game-winner for the 2nd time this week. Besides doing a great job mentoring Zadorov, Geertsen and now Sergei Boikov, he’s also put up 11 points in 22 games since coming down from the Avs. ATO Jackson Houck sat while Dan Maggio took his place and it was a huge mistake as you could have probably guessed.
Preview: Stars/Moose
Texas has already clinched a playoff spot and seem to be locked into 3rd place and a first round matchup with San Diego. Rivalry aside, I don't think we'll be getting their full lineup tonight so yet another great opportunity for a win. The Rampage are 6-5-2 vs the Stars this year.
On the flipside, Manitoba is terrible but has beaten SA all 3 times they've faced each other. The Moose have given up more goals than anyone in the Western Conference, even more than the Stars if you can believe it. The final home game would be a great time to put on a show for the fans.
Lines/Pairs from Saturday:
Evs – Street – Pete
Big Sam – Mikko – Borna
Hish – Draz – Nunn
Bourke – Belz – Maggio
Gormley – Duncan
Mason – Max
Boikov – Guenin
Yogi
Roman
Scratched: Houck
Injured: Clark, Beck, Schumi, Bordy
I really hope Houck gets back in the lineup, scratching him for Maggio the other night was awful. If Clark is healthy the staff will probably feel the need to put him in the lineup and Geertsen & Boikov have been quite good the last couple games. Don't see them sitting in a just world. With Agozzino back there's really an embarrassment of riches at forward, someone who deserves to play will definitely sit. Also should be interesting to see if Reto plays both games, and he should.
Schedule
Rampage at Texas Wednesday night 8:30pm in the ET
Rampage vs Manitoba Friday night 8:30 in the ET
All games on Ticket 760
Next up
A long relaxing summer
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Avs are already enjoying a long relaxing summer so no conflicts
That's a wrap for this season, I want to thank everyone that stopped by and read/commented or both, I truly enjoy digging up knowledge on the Avalanche Development system and sharing it with you all. In the coming weeks I'll have some season analysis and once we get players signing some posts on what the team might look like next year. Enjoy!