Game Day No. 35

The Bucks got the second half started the best way they probably could have with a 6-2 win over the Rio Grande Valley Killer Bees last night.

Tonight, they'll host the Corpus Christi IceRays, a team they have had a really hard time beating this season and haven't been able to pick up a win against in their last four meetings.

The Bucks (16-11-7, 39 points) are still in fourth place in the Southern Conference and could move into a tie with the Texas Brahmas (18-13-5, 41 points) for third if they beat the IceRays (14-16-5, 33 points) and the Arizona Sundogs (13-19-3, 29 points) beat the Brahmas tonight.

Actually, that would technically give the Bucks third place outright because they have two games in hand on the Brahmas, but anyway...

Brian Sandalow's story from last night contained this interesting tidbit:

"I knew (the Bees) were going to come at us hard. We just had to weather the storm as long as we could and hope we get a couple lucky goals," Bucks coach Terry Ruskowski said. "And that’s exactly what happened."

That’s not quite exactly what happened, actually.

Especially in the third period, any sense of execution from the Bees was gone, instead replaced by either well-intended but misdirected aggression or just a lack of inspiration.

The lack of any kind of consistency is a problem that the Bees have had all season, one that doesn’t seem to be going away and cost them against the Bucks.

Whether or not you want to give the Bucks credit for the win, they still came away from the game with two points, and they'll obviously be looking for another two tonight.

For more, you can read Bryan Benway's preview and check out the Pointstreak pre-game notes.

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

Oh, and tonight is one of the tailgate cookoff nights; apparently the contest is "best chicken."

Update: Jean-Philippe Levasseur is back in net for the Springfield Falcons as they face the Binghamton Senators in a game you can follow here. The Falcons sent Aaron Sorochan back to the ECHL, so Andrew Penner (PTO) and Levasseur are the only goalies they're currently carrying on their roster.