Starting from Scratch

It may seem a bit extreme at the halfway point of the season, but according to what Coach Ruskowski told me today, he really believes he needs to "start from scratch" with his team right now.

Obviously, the 6-3 loss to the Rio Grande Valley Killer Bees last night was the last thing he wanted, especially considering he had said there were "no ifs, ands or buts" about the team needing to go down to Hidalgo and come back with a win.

A quick look at the boxscore from last night's game tells you most of what you need to know, but here is what Ruskowski had to say about it when I spoke to him this morning:

"Our defense wasn't moving the puck. Our defense got beat. They didn't have a short gap, they had a large gap. They let the opposing team come at them with speed, and we're trying to take time and space away from them so we don't give them speed because they're quick and they're fast. Our passing was horrendous again. Again. Our defensive coverage wasn't there. There was no hitting; when you're playing a small team, you've got to hit and contain them, and we didn't do that, either. Penalties, my God. Stupid, untimely penalties. When you get momentum and you're trying to go on it, then all of a sudden, "Bam!," you've got a penalty, 'Bam!,' you've got another penalty, now you're 5-on-3. My concern right now is my defense. You look at any team, you look at goalies first then you look at the defense. If you have strong defense, you're going to have a strong team. If you can keep the other team from scoring, obviously the forwards should be able to score one or two goals and win a game for you. Right now, my defense is really struggling. Really struggling. If we played to our capabilities, we should have won the game, but obviously we didn't. We're doing more things wrong than we are right."

For him to still be as angry as he was this morning with about 13 hours between the game ending and when I spoke to him is a sure sign that he has had it. But just in case things aren't clear enough to the players, he has reinstated two-a-day practices and this morning made them skate until someone threw up. Here's his reasoning:

"I'm trying to make my team hate losing as much as I do. When you lose, you're going to pay the price. I want them to be in better shape. This morning, we skated hard. In the afternoon, we're going to go out there and do all systems. We're going to warm the goalies up and do all the systems. We're going to forecheck, we're going to do neutral-ice trap, we're going to go back to everything we have to do. Tomorrow, we'll do the same thing. You know what, we lost when I babied them and pampered them. Now it's my turn. We're going to work as hard as we can. We're going to go two-a-days tomorrow. I just don't care anymore. If we pampered them and lost, then let's work hard and see what happens after that, but we have to try something different because I hate losing more than anything else."

Brian Sandalow got a chance to talk to Ruskowski immediately following last night's showing, and he also got to see the game (and share some pre-game info). Needless to say, and as Bryan Benway elaborates on, Ruskowski wasn't a happy camper. Sandalow's story obviously focuses a bit more on Chris Brooks' reaction to the game, but it's got some Ruskowski anger, too.

This morning, I also asked him about that Brahmas-Killer Bees trade. He's not too pleased about it, though possibly moreso just perplexed, but he didn't have nearly as much to say about that:

"It's not something you usually hear about that you trade in your division. I know they only play them twice, mind you, but they made a trade and a lot of times you don't do those things unless you know you're getting the better end of the deal. Time will tell if that happens."

When I asked him about whether or not he thinks the Brahmas adding a scoring threat will have any effect on his team, he made it pretty clear that everyone else can do whatever they want right now and he isn't going to care unless the Bucks pick things up themselves.

"I'm more concerned about my team right now," he said. "I'm not concerned by anybody other than us. Right now, we're not playing any kind of hockey that we're supposed to play. I've got to go back and start right from scratch on breakouts and defensive coverage...I've got to start from scratch. I thought that we'd get past this point and get on with setting plays up in different situations and starting something new. But these guys have forgotten the basics, so now I have to go back to the basics of what we're trying to do. I have to re-teach them all over again. Instead of taking a step, I have to go back two. It really bothers me. Watching the tape last night, it makes your stomach turn to see the mistakes that we made. It's just ridiculous."

I'll probably end up using some of those quotes for my story that will run in Friday's paper, but I just figured I'd get them out there now. Did I mention he is mad?

Of course, the one positive in the past couple days for the Bucks was the return of Darryl Smith, who apparently played better than most of the team last night in spite of being jet-lagged and having played four games in the previous six nights. I'm sure he was thrilled with being skated to death this morning.

"It's huge," Ruskowski said of getting back his leading goal scorer. "The kid can play, just flat-out play. He flew all day, got in there two hours before the game started, didn't have anything to eat...but he played hard. That's the way he plays. He had a couple good goal-scoring opportunities, and I think once he gets established and gets his legs underneath him, he'll be a huge factor for us. But we'll have to find more of those."

As far as how Smith did with Houston:

"They said he played very well. Actually, last game, he played on one of the top lines and he played very well. The response was that the coach really likes him. When a coach likes a player, that's a real positive for the player. He said that we could be really proud of his efforts, so I certainly am."

There is apparently a chance that he could get called back up eventually, but for now, the Aeros are going with right wing Matt Beaudoin, who they signed to a professional tryout along with releasing Smith yesterday.

I wanted to talk to Smith about his time in the AHL today, but I wasn't sure anyone would be up for talking after skating as much as they did this morning, so I figured I'd hold off until at least this afternoon. But I ran into a couple of the guys at the grocery store not much later, and they seemed fine, so who knows.

Just FYI, Serge Dube and Bobby Russell were pardoned from the skating torture due to being "achey." Vincent Zaore-Vanie, who returned to practice last week after sitting out since Nov. 25 with a "lower-body injury," was not as lucky and looked to be in a bit of pain.

Meanwhile, I finally got to talk to Matt Miller on Monday, but I never got to share his quotes about what he thinks he brings to the team and the way they've been struggling of late. Miller has three goals and an assist in his six games with the Bucks so far.

"I bring hard work...I'm just constantly working hard and chipping in the points when I can, just helping everyone out and doing the best I can. I think we got off to a rocky couple games when I first showed up with the team. We're 1-2-2 (1-3-2 now) since I've been here, and I don't know, I think we could do better. This team's a great team, and Coach is great. I think things will start turning our way, we'll get more bounces."

Oh, and here's what he had to say about last night's game, which I guess isn't very relevant now:

"I think we're just going to have to work hard and play our system, do all the right things and try to limit our mistakes. Hopefully we'll come out on top. It's going to be huge to get a win. We haven't really been winning a lot lately, so every win's going to be big. We're chasing Texas now for first place in our division, and I think if we just keep working hard, it'll turn out well for us."

The Brahmas (21-9-3, 45 points) are now four points ahead of the Bucks (19-10-3, 41 pts.) in first, and they play tonight, so they could add to that lead with a win over the Oklahoma City Blazers. The Bucks will have two games in hand on the Brahmas heading into this weekend, but even if they win those two, that leaves the Brahmas on top.

The battle for third place is even closer, with the Killer Bees (14-15-3, 31 pts.) having jumped back ahead of the Corpus Christi IceRays (13-14-4, 30 pts.), who play their game in hand on the Killer Bees on Thursday when they host the Bossier-Shreveport Mudbugs.

Since it's my day off and I have to be back to the arena in about an hour for the second half of practice (which Ruskowski said could last three hours if the guys can't get things right), I'm going to go home and try to relax for a few...I'll post tonight's scores once everything is final, but barring anything extraordinary happening, that'll be it until tomorrow.

Ooh, I hope Bucky will be on the roof by the time I leave the LEC...