Game Day No. 59

How crazy is it that there are only five more regular season games left after tonight? Time flies, I guess.

Meanwhile, the Bucks begin a big three-game road trip tonight at the Amarillo Gorillas, with the Texas Brahmas and Corpus Christi IceRays on tap.

In my preview for this weekend, I tried to include a bit of a diagnosis from a couple of players about what the team will need to improve if it actually wants to last past the first round of the playoffs.

I spoke to Coach Ruskowski, of course, but at this point he seems to think that if the guys would just do things right and start listening to him (and remember what teamwork is supposed to mean, as mentioned in the notes of my story), they'd be fine.

Adam Rivet agreed, noting that the personnel is capable of doing the job if they can just fix a few small problems and also using that old cliche about everyone "holding their sticks a little tighter" during a rough patch like this.

James Hiebert, who watched most of the home games from the stands before coming out of "retirement" last week, said the team has been kind of sloppy this year and agreed with Ruskowski about a lack of teamwork on and off the ice.

The sloppiness is evident in their passing, which infuriates Ruskowski to no end and led him to share his frustrations about the fact that guys who have made it to this level should know how to pass, not have to be taught in end-of-season practices.

Obviously, losing Jeff Bes has had an incredibly impactful effect on the Bucks, and now that he's out for the season, they don't even have the hope of him coming back to motivate them. Getting Hiebert back and having Rick Kozak and Bobby Russell almost ready to return should help, but you just can't replace Bes.

Prior to losing Bes in that 4-3 loss to the Bossier-Shreveport Mudbugs on Jan. 26, the Bucks were 21-13-4 (46 points). Since then, and I am including that game because he missed the end of it, they are 10-9-1 (21 pts.), including the current five-game winless streak.

Going purely on straight-up win percentage, without regard for the "ties" or OT losses, the Bucks were at .618 with Bes and are at .526 withouth him. I know that doesn't seem like a terribly drastic difference, but at this time of year, it's a difference that will make you pay.

Anyway, I know it's been said about every game for a while now, but this is a must-win for the Bucks, especially considering the Rio Grande Valley Killer Bees would tie them in the standings with a Bucks' loss and a Killer Bees' win over the Corpus Christi IceRays tonight.

I'll live blog this one to the best of my ability, but I'm on desk alone, so I'll have a lot of calls to take. For now, you can read more about it in Bryan Benway's preview and the Pointstreak pre-game notes.

Oh, and it appears we'll never get to witness a Hiebert-Dennis Maxwell rematch, at least not any time this season, as the Killer Bees waived Maxwell and acquired Brent Gauvreau the other day.

Brian Sandalow has more on that, thoughts on the Killer Bees losing two points, his CHL awards ballot, this week's Southeast Division rankings (which move the Killer Bees up past the Bucks), news that the Killer Bees are at least No. 4 in the conference and that tiebreaker clarification everyone's been wondering about.

The basic message of that is that if the Bucks and Killer Bees finish with the same number of points, the Killer Bees will take the No. 3 seed because their win still counts as a win, even if the points don't count in the standings.

I'm trying to think of all the other random things I've wanted to blog about recently, but my short-term memory is pretty full of powerlifting totals and baseball scores right about now.

However, I do remember that the Bucks practiced with four forward lines on Wednesday, but I think that was just to help Kozak and Mike Gooch (who were both on the same line and both traveled with the team this weekend in spite of still being on the injured reserve) get back into shape.

Matt Miller was the second winger on the top line, which cannot seem to stay intact for a second this season. Hiebert had been moved to the line with Ryan Salvis and Igor Agarunov, which could be a threat at both ends of the ice if all things work out.

Oh, and at the jersey auction on Sunday, the first since both Brent Cullaton and Hiebert's returns, their sweaters went for $700 and $875, respectively.

I had wondered if Hiebert would go back to No. 9 eventually, seeing as how it is available, and I was first told he would, but Matt Brayfield said no on Wednesday, and I forgot to ask Hiebert why.

As far as why he came back, he said he'd had a couple nagging injuries last season that have pretty much taken care of themselves over the past few months and a lot of fans had asked him about it, so he figured he may as well. He also said that his father really wanted him to come back to the sport, so that was also a big factor.

Obviously, getting back into shape will be his biggest issue, as Greg Rajan noted in a graphic quote from Brent Hughes in his game blog from Sunday, but Hiebert said to just give him a couple games and a couple hard skates and he'll be fine.