Stuff From Last Night

As it turns out, the Bucks' 9-0 loss to the Arizona Sundogs last night was more than just their worst defeat in franchise history; it was also the Sundogs' biggest victory in franchise history.

Other notables: The Sundogs' first home win of the season, J.F. Perras' first shutout of the season, the Sundogs' first shutout of the season as a team... oh, and Scott Thewauld's hat trick goals were his first scored in for the Sundogs.

Bryan Benway's blog about the game doesn't make things look much rosier, but keep in mind the fact that the Bucks had only 15 skaters with only 17 players on their active roster, two of whom are goalies and only one of whom was fit to play.

Here are some interesting tidbits from that post (all copied and pasted without editing):

Everything the Sundogs did went right, and everything the Bucks did went wrong. Arizona could have put butter on their skate blades and rode on uni-cycles and scored on a slap shot past a fire breathing dragon last night. That's how well everything went for the Sundogs last night.

I also read a lot of e-mails and texts about why Mike Sgroi did not fight anyone last night. Well it's simple, nobody from the Sundogs wanted to fight Sgroi. He asked a lot of Arizona players last night to fight him and they all said no.

Let's just say the mood in the locker room last night was not good. It was very quiet, with some guys getting treatment from Bobby Moore, and others just sitting in their lockers with blank stares on their faces. Rosco had a long talk with the team after the game last night, a long talk. Coach was not in a very good mood when I went into his office after the game. He just looked at me and said, "did it look as bad up there as it did down here?" To which I replied, "yup."

But let's get off of the roof of the building, there is no need to jump off of it yet. It's just one game, one bad night, that's it. Let's put it this way. Go back to the 2008 Southern Conference Finals. The Bucks won game six at the LEC 9-2 to force a game seven the next night, and the Sundogs came out and won game seven 6-1. That is the ultimate "it's one bad game, one bad night". So think about that. Now if the Bucks lose tomorrow night 9-0 then i'd start to think about going back up on the roof and jumping off. But i'd wait a bit.

This actually is kind of funny, but not really. The Sundogs scored so many goals last night that the air compressor to the goal horn broke.

Well, yikes. I haven't been able to talk to Coach Ruskowski yet, and all of Bryan Benway's audio clips from last night were recorded prior to the game, so they don't give any insight into how the team reacted to the loss.

I also cannot find anything about the game on the Web site for the Prescott Valley Tribune, but there is a story from the Prescott Daily Courier by David Hirigoyen, who evidently avoided the wrath of Ruskowski when gathering postgame quotes.

The story's sidebar notes the last time a few things had happened for the Sundogs:

It’s been a while

Until Wednesday, the last time the Sundogs

- scored 9 goals: 1/22, 2008 vs. New Mexico

- scored 5 goals in a period: 2/28, 2008 at Amarill

- had a hat trick: 1/28 vs. Rocky Mountain (Adam Perry)

- had a shutout: 2/27 at Corpus Christi (Marco Emond)

- won at home: 3/13 vs. New Mexico

That obviously doesn't make things look much better from the Bucks' end, but there's always tomorrow night.

Due to some new security restrictions on our computers at work, I can neither watch nor listen to games, but it's easy to assume a lot went wrong in a loss like last night's.

As I noted yesterday, Evan Schwabe was the only player without a neutral plus/minus after two periods, and that remained the same through three, so good for him, I guess?

The lack of offense cannot be blamed entirely on Darryl Smith's absence, but he is obviously a playmaker when he's around, and his linemates were not on the ice for the majority of the Sundogs' scoring.

Recently restored forward Peter-James Corsi, on the other hand, was out there for at least five goals, while team captain Adam Rivet was on the ice for at least four. The reason I say at least is because they could have been around on the power-play goal, too, but those stats aren't kept by the league to my knowledge.

Obviously, a 9-0 loss is going to bring any goalie into question, though I have no way of knowing for sure how much Kyle Gajewski is at fault having not personally witnessed his performance. I doubt his 1-2-1 record is what Ruskowski was going for in keeping him here, though.

What did those of you who watched the game think were the biggest factors in the Bucks being beaten like that? I am genuinely curious as to how they could come out of a meeting in which they were told they need to step up or go home and fall completely flat.

Back to Smith, though, he'll be playing in his first game with the Manitoba Moose tonight, and you can follow that here.

UPDATE: Smith is wearing No. 38 for the Moose and has yet to take a shot or get on the sheet in any other way as of the end of the first period. ... Game over, the Moose lost 4-1, and Smith was a -1 with two shots. Next game tomorrow against the Texas Stars.