Game Day No. 32

Tonight marks the midway point of the season as the Bucks (14-10-7, 35 points) host the Northern-Conference-leading Colorado Eagles (21-6-2, 44 points) for the first and only time this season.

As noted earlier, veteran defenseman Paul Elliott has come out of retirement to rejoin the Bucks and is expected to be in the lineup tonight.

The Bucks also announced another move earlier today, placing forward Neil Trimm on the 14-day injured reserve for the second time this season.

Trimm had eight points in nine games since coming back from his previous IR stint, which lasted from Nov. 15 through Dec. 17.

Coach Ruskowski is still trying to bring in another forward, more so as a replacement for Lance Monych than anything else, and losing Trimm just adds to that need.

There could be news on that situation tomorrow.

Back to tonight, though, my story in today's Times addresses Ruskowski's thoughts on the Eagles, finishing the first half strong and losing defenseman Jeremy Swanson to the season-ending IR.

Here are some quotes:

"I got to see them play in Allen last week, and it’s hard for me to find a bad spot on that team. Every line they have is good, they pass well, they have good speed and toughness, great defense and great goaltending… I can’t really go against them line-for-line because they have so much talent."

"We have to play solid defense and jam them up as much as we can. My thinking is that we have to play a close-checking game and really get on them… that has to be a priority for us. They have so much talent and speed and move the puck around so well; we need to stop them before they can get going. We don’t want them to get any momentum, so we need to keep them off the scoreboard as long as we can."

"We need to finish off as best we can. We’re getting to the point where every shift means so much, we want to get momentum going into the All-Star break, have some confidence in those days off. Going in after some wins is better than going in with a couple losses."

"It wasn’t a surprise because I knew he had to have surgery, but it hurts. He was kind of the guy who shot blocked, moved the puck up well and didn’t get beaten 1-on-1. He was starting to put it on. The best game he’d played was the one he got hurt in; he did an outstanding job. That hurt our defensive rotation a lot."

And here are some thoughts from player/assistant coach Jeff Bes:

"We’d been playing really well, and we just hadn’t been getting the bounces. Now that we have that one win under our belts, we have to build on that. We have the best team in the league coming in (tonight), and we have to be able to stick to the game plan. When we do that, we’re successful, so we have to really be prepared to stick to the game plan and stick to the system and really keep our work ethic up."

"We’re having good practices this week, and with that, we have to go in there a little bit confident. We’ve been able to tinker and work on things and get a specific game plan for Colorado, which is something you need."

"We’re feeling good about ourselves right now. The points are going to get harder, the games get harder now in the second half of the season, so we need to be prepared."

You can read more about tonight's game in Bryan Benway's preview and the Pointstreak pre-game notes, which list Elliott as wearing No. 22 tonight.

I'll be back to live blog the game in a couple hours, and, as usual, you can also follow it on Pointstreak, watch on CHL-TV or listen on Imagen 94.1 FM.

Oh, and the Bucks are hosting a health and fitness fair during tonight's game. Forgot to mention that previously.