Game Day No. 38

The Bucks will be back in action tonight as they take on the Mississippi RiverKings at the DeSoto Civic Center in Southaven, Miss.

Both teams are coming off one-goal wins, as the Bucks came back to beat the Texas Brahmas 5-4 in a shootout on Wednesday night and the RiverKings defeated the Rio Grande Valley Killer Bees 4-3 last night.

Last time these teams met up, at the LEC on Nov. 25, my preview focused on the whole former teammates playing against each other thing, so that wasn't as much of a focus for my preview for tonight.

As any of you who attended the game on Wednesday know, the Bucks played better than most of us have seen them play this season in the latter half of the contest, and they were beyond excited to win.

The guys called the win "amazing," "huge," "massive," etc...and said it was definitely going to improve their confidence and bring their "swagger" back. Coach Ruskowski also thought it would help them as far as the trip out to Mississippi on Thursday night.

"I think going on the road trip, guys will be more relaxed on the bus," he said. "It’ll be a situation where they have that self-confidence, hopefully, and we’re hoping that this game will be one that we’ll look back at and say it turned the whole season around for us. I’m hoping that will be the case."

As I mention in my preview, the Bucks have had a bit of a problem with scoring first lately, but Ruskowski is also concerned that when they do score first, they let up a little bit, which is obviously also a bad thing.

"Sometimes if we score first and score two or three goals, we have a tendency not to play hard," he said. "We’d like to score first, then play our game the way it’s supposed to be played – tight defense, and when the offensive chance comes, obviously score. But our frame of mind is defense, to play strong, strong defensive coverage and let the offense take care of itself."

The defense was something that impressed him on Wednesday for one of the first times this season, so we'll see if they can keep that up, especially as the defensive corps will be one man stronger with the return of Vincent Zaore-Vanie.

That win on Wednesday could be especially big as far as rookie netminder Ryan Gibb, who picked up his first professional shootout win, as he will be starting again tonight.

You can read more about tonight's game in Bryan Benway's road trip preview or check out the Pointstreak pre-game notes.

I'm going to go home and pack now, but I'll be back later to update you on all of tonight's scores.