And, just a reminder, Centomo is not here because he is in Oklahoma City with his wife, who will be delivering the couple's first child sometime very soon if she hasn't already.
Centomo is expected to rejoin the team in Mississippi for the Bucks' game against the RiverKings on Saturday.
If the Bucks aren't able to sign another guy for Wednesday night, equipment manager Matt Brayfield will be dressing as Ryan Gibb's backup. Yes, really. He was in the net Coach Ruskowski had the defensemen shooting on today, and Ruskowski even seems to think he's not too shabby between the pipes.
"I don't know (if he's going to be the backup)," Ruskowski said. "I was trying to get a kid from Corpus Christi, but Matt's not a bad little goalie. I have no qualms putting him in there for the one game until Centomo's back for the game in Mississippi."
As far as having Gibb start against the Brahmas:
"Absolutely," Ruskowski said when asked if he was confident using his rookie netminder against the division leader. "At first I didn't know what he could do, but after watching him play, I have a lot of confidence in him. I hope he can continue to play the way he's been playing all year, because we sure need a great performance against Texas."
Of course, I couldn't resist asking Ruskowski about Dustin Traylen parting ways with the Corpus Christi IceRays and whether or not that surprised him having coached Traylen all of last season. He was understandably a bit hesitant to say too much on the record, but here's what he did:
"Dusty's a great guy, I got along very well with him. He did his job, and I never interfered with his work ethic or whatever it was. If he had problems, he'd come see me, but otherwise it was a good relationship. I just don't get on my goalies. I let them play, and if they're playing well I keep on playing them. It somewhat surprised me, but was it a total surprise? Probably not."
So I guess the nickname has come back into play...as have interestingly cryptic yet somehow very clear quotes. We'll see if Traylen ends up with another team before season's end.
I'll post more about the Bucks' injury situation, practice today and what Ruskowski thought of their play over the weekend a bit later, but for now I'm off to hunt down video of the Penguins on the jumbotron at Heinz Field for the Steelers' AFC Championship win last night. Just kidding; I have office work to do. But I'll be back.
UPDATE: I guess a post entitled "Goalie Madness" is as good a place to share the Goaltender of the Week honoree as any, so congrats to Brahmas netminder Brett Jaeger for getting the nod this week. In addition to saving 27 of the Bucks' 29 shots in the Brahmas 6-2 win on Saturday, he shut out the Arizona Sundogs on Friday, stopping all 37 shots he faced in a 5-0 win. He also climbed atop the league's save percentage leaderboard, or at least into a tie with Oklahoma City Blazers backstop Doug Groenestege. Save percentage is my favorite goalie stat, so that's a pretty decent accomplishment and a nice birthday gift for Jaeger, who turned 26 yesterday. The weekly honors are the first awarded to a Brahmas netminder this season. Player of the Week, on the other hand, went to Rocky Mountain Rage center David Morelli, who oddly just turned 26 about two weeks ago. More relevantly, he had four goals and an assist during the Rage's two wins over the Wichita Thunder this weekend. In Friday's 7-1 victory, he netted his first hat trick of the season, which included the game-winning goal. The Rage's Saturday loss to the Odessa Jackalopes was the only game last week in which he was held scoreless. Morelli was also a plus-5 on the week.
ANOTHER UPDATE: As this is goalie-related, I'll add it to this post...I know it's early in the week, but I'm guessing this will stand pretty strong as "What the heck?" photo of the week:
AND YET ANOTHER: In perusing the AHL Web site, I discovered that Johnny Curry nearly matched Flower's effort yesterday with his own shutout, complete with 35 saves and good for the AHL's third star of the night. Cute. Oh, and look who has landed in Muskegon. Yes, I did get that from this.
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