Game Day No. 24

The Bucks (13-6-4, 30 points) will face the Amarillo Gorillas (8-15-4, 20 points) tonight in their third straight road game.

Last time the two teams met, the Bucks handed the Gorillas, 5-1-0 at the time, their second loss of the season in a 5-2 game at the LEC, and it's been pretty much non-stop losing for the Gorillas since then.

The Gorillas are now in last place in the Southern Conference and have lost six straight after suffering a 2-1 loss to the Tulsa Oilers last night.

You can read more on the matchup, and the Bucks' current situation, in my preview, which I will copy and paste below:

Bucks continue road trip tonight in Amarillo

Tonight, the Laredo Bucks will face the Amarillo Gorillas in the second-to-last contest of their season-high four-game road trip and are hoping to get a win streak going before they head home for Christmas.
The Bucks (13-6-4, 30 points) shut out the Corpus Christi IceRays (8-13-4, 20 points) for a 2-0 victory in their last game on Thursday night, while the Gorillas (8-14-4, 20 points) lost their sixth straight at the hands of the Tulsa Oilers (12-10-1, 25 points) on Friday.
“I thought it was pretty good,” Laredo Head Coach/General Manager Terry Ruskowski said of his team’s play on Thursday. “It was lot better of an effort; the guys were focused on what they have to do and did the systems a lot better, and we got very, very good goaltending.”
Kyle Gajewski (3-3-1) was in net for the shutout, the Bucks’ first of the season and his first as a professional, and Ruskowski plans to stick with the second-year netminder tonight.
“We’re going to start him again unless something else happens,” Ruskowski said. “Every one of the guys patted him on the back after that game… hopefully he feels confident because he’s got the reigns while JP (No. 1 goaltender Jean-Philippe Levasseur) is gone.”
Goaltending hasn’t been much of a issue for Laredo, even in its losses, while scoring goals seems to be a bit of a concern.
“We need more goal scoring,” Ruskowski said. “Our forwards have to take advantage of our goal-scoring opportunities so we can take pressure off the other lines.”
Tonight will be yet another chance for the Bucks’ role players to step up in the scoring department, as Maxime Lincourt, who is tied for the team lead with nine goals, is not likely to play.
“I would expect that Lincourt would miss the game, and a few guys will be playing sick,” Ruskowski said. “Nothing ever really runs smoothly, so we have to deal with the problems along the way.”
Amarillo has faced its own fair share of problems after starting the season 4-0, and though Laredo was able to come out on top of the teams’ last meeting, Ruskowski knows tonight will be a whole new challenge.
“There’s absolutely no question that if we take them lightly, we’re going to be in trouble,” Ruskowski said. “We need to come out and play really tight defense and work them down low as much as we can.”
Tonight is the last of three straight games against Southern Conference foes, and the Bucks are battling to get back into the race for first place with the Odessa Jackalopes (19-4-3, 41 points) and Allen Americans (17-5-2, 36 points).
“We want to win these games,” Ruskowski said. “We have to start winning on a consistent basis, and to do that, we have to continue to play hard and start to score on a regular basis.
“We’re close to the teams ahead of us, and the teams behind us are close to us, so it’s very important, and it’s going to get more important down the road.”


Bryan Benway posted an update on the Maxime Lincourt situation on his blog, saying:

He did not participate in morning skate today, but he will go out for warm-ups and will be a game time decision. It depends on how he feels after warm-ups, if he thinks he can play through it then he will go, if not he won't. It's that simple. I'm not going to lie to you, losing your top goal scorer (Lincourt is tied with Darryl Smith with nine goals) will be a blow to the offense, especially an offense that has been struggling as of late. We will see if Max can go tonight, i'll have more of a report on the pre-game show tonight.

Benway also had an interesting note about this morning's skate:

As for the rest of the morning skate today, since the Gorillas had a six hour bus ride last night from Tulsa they did not skate this morning, so the Bucks went on the ice about a half hour earlier at 10:30am. Like I mentioned yesterday, the Bucks did not practice yesterday, and Rosco was not happy with the skate today. That's all i'll say about that. I hope the Bucks come out a bit crisper tonight than they were this morning, for all of our sakes!

When Coach Ruskowski isn't happy with a practice, or a skate, it's usually because the guys are slacking off and not paying attention. Not really the best way to act on a game day.

Apparently, also according to Benway's blog, a bunch of the guys will be going to the Kansas City Chiefs' game against the Cleveland Browns tomorrow. They better play well tonight if they don't want that to be a sour experience. I know that's not the best matchup to watch, but I haven't been to an NFL game since college, so I'm a little jealous.

Anyway, you can read more about tonight's game in Benway's preview and the Pointstreak pre-game notes.

I'll try to blog about the game as much as possible, but there's a lot of other stuff going on tonight at the same time, so don't forget you can watch it on CHL-TV or listen on Imagen 94.1 while you watch the Cowboys' game.