From the Rampage Desk: Week 19 - Now What?

The beloved Rampage continue the ghastly Rodeo Road Trip this weekend in central Michigan with 2 games vs the Griffins. First meetings of the season and this is the only team on San Antonio’s schedule they haven’t faced yet. Historically, the Rampage have fared well vs the Griffs as did the Monsters when they were the affiliate. We’ll see if that means anything, I have my doubts. The Rampage are still looking for their first win since leaving the AT&T Center earlier this month.

Roster Report

- No transactions lately

- Reid Petryk was healthy enough to play Wednesday after a battle with LBI

- Gus Young remains in San Antonio AFAIK

- Just for the record: Trent Vogelhuber is out for the season, Turner Elson could return in March from a long LBI and Nathan Lieuwen may or may not be recovering from a long-term undisclosed injury suffered while with the Eagles.

Fast Facts: Milwaukee

MKE 5 - SAR 1

Shots: 26-28 (48.1%) Grimaldi had 5, a bunch of guys had 2
Special Teams: PP 0/4, PK 1/2
Spencer Martin stopped 23/28 (.821)
Goal: Girard (3)

This was a grindy battle until a total turd of a 3rd period. Many defensive breakdowns and dumb plays led to apathy and 3 goals in less than 3 minutes. I can’t imagine that EV had anything good to say about it after.

Preview: Grand Rapids

At the beginning of the RRT on Feb 4th Texas and San Antonio were almost even in the standings but had little hope. Since then Tucson has collapsed, Texas has gone on a run that has them within a game of a playoff spot and the Rampage have a single point in 5 games. So far on the trip, San Antonio has been outscored 21-10 and the closest thing to a win is a shootout loss vs Rockford. Didn’t seem like it at the time but they could have reached out for a playoff spot with a little solid play. It’s not been more than a calendar year since they’ve been over .500 and it doesn’t seem like they’ll see that mark soon, if at all.

Lineup from Wednesday

Bourque - Girard - Grimaldi
Greer - O’Brien - Bourke
Whitney - Compher - Sislo
Henley - Nantel - Petryk

Bigras - Clark
Siemens - Gelinas
Boikov - Lindholm

Martin
Simpson

Scratch: Nunn, Geertsen, Corbett

In the continuing search for offense Coach Veilleux once again mixed up the lines to no avail. The 4th was good as usual but didn’t play much, also as usual. The Girard line was ok at times. The new O’Brien line was promising but didn’t generate much offense. Compher took one for the team dragging Whit/Sislo around but they were bad. The defense was unhelpful to horrifying all night. Eric Gelinas was probably the best of the lot purely from doing the least harm but still couldn’t manage to get his shot anywhere near the net.

I’m sure there will be some more tweaks this weekend. Why Garry Nunn, who has more goals than Mike Sislo and better goals per game than all but 4 guys on the team, sits in the press box is baffling. For a team with so few finishers, having one of your best in street clothes while underperforming vets continue to blow it makes no sense. Maybe they’re trying to get something in a trade for a few of these guys, idk. Needs to be fixed.

Schedule

Friday vs Grand Rapids 7pm ET
Saturday vs Grand Rapids 7pm ET

All games on Ticket760

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Tonight’s game runs concurrent with the Avs nightmare in North Carolina but tomorrow stands alone. Stop by and say hi!