There was a new player in the arena - one who was apparently at the games last week - but he will not be signed.
Derek Scanlon, a forward for Brent Cullaton's Buffalo Jr. Bison, made the trip to Laredo with his coach so Coach Ruskowski could see him play and decide if he'd like to make him part of the team.
With the current roster situation not leaving any openings for new players to actually play, Ruskowski has decided not to sign the kid, but it should be clear that he is not the defenseman Ruskowski had been scouting.
There is no official word as to whether or not that defenseman will be signed, but Ruskowski said it would only be a priority if Paul Elliott was too injured to play, and that is not the case.
Elliott did not suit up for yesterday's practice, but he was in attendance and did go out on the ice when the team huddled up to watch Ruskowski draw out plays.
Ruskowski said there is no doubt Elliott will play tonight; yesterday was just an extra day of rest for him because he has been taking a lot of hard hits in the series.
Back to Scanlon, though, you can read more about him and his trip to Laredo on the Boulder Jr. Bison Web site.
Scanlon's coach, Cullaton, seems to think things are going pretty well since he came back to Laredo, and I doubt many would argue with that.
"I think he’s done a very good job," Ruskowski said. "He makes positive plays in our end, their end and in neutral ice; he helps on the power play; he’s smart with the puck – he’ll shoot it, he’ll pass it, and it keeps the other team not knowing what to do. That split-second is a factor in making a good pass or a good shot on net or them interfering or intercepting that pass.
"He’s been a big factor, not just on the ice but also in the dressing room."
Cullaton is a talkative guy in conversation but the farthest thing from that in interviews, so I'm not going to post his quotes the way I normally do things like that on here.
You can read some of what he had to say, along with some quotes from Ruskowski and goaltender Pier-Olivier Pelletier, in my notebook in today's paper.
Cullaton said that when he re-joined the Bucks, he wanted to "come in and contribute and be a part of a team that can win."
The team has won two of the three games its played since he came back, so that goal seems to have been met, and Cullaton's three goals and one assist in those two wins certainly didn't hurt.
He thinks things are going "pretty well," and he says he's "feeling better each day that (he) skate(s)," so he wants to "just keep going."
Cullaton said the key to the Bucks' offensive success in their wins - including his first playoff goal since April 26, 2006 - has been "shooting the puck, driving the net for rebounds; just keeping it simple."
On a slightly random note, Cullaton said that gold stick he's been using in games has no story behind it; it's just another stick. He was not using it at practice yesterday, though, so I'm not sure if he broke it or was just saving it up for the next game.
He also said that in his mind, tonight's game is "the most important game of the year" because it would be "huge" to win the series before ever giving the Americans a chance to clinch it.
Obviously there's no way around that fact, as winning tonight is the best course of action for the Bucks if they want to get back to the Southern Conference Finals after missing out for the first time in seven seasons last year.
Since even before Game 5, Ruskowski has been very focused on the fact that the Bucks having two chances to win the series puts all the pressure on the Americans.
However, that doesn't mean he wants to waste the first chance his team has.
"All I can say is it’s a lot better for us going into their building with it being 3-2 for us than 3-2 against us," Ruskowski said. "It puts a lot of pressure on them because now it’s two games they must win, and for us it’s must win one. But it is a must-win, and nothing is going to be easy. They have a very good hockey team, and we’re very lucky and fortunate to be where we are. I thank God for it, because I think he's been on our side.
"I’d rather have it (tonight) instead of Wednesday if it’s going to happen at all. It would be huge. Momentum is a huge factor in any sport and any situation. Momentum, momentum, momentum. And if you have momentum on your side, it’s a huge factor.We have to keep it on our side, get to them as quickly as possible and score a couple goals and put them on their heels instead of their toes."
Pelletier had similar thoughts.
"We’re pretty happy about (where we are)," he said. "We knew we had to take one over there first, and then our plan was to win all three here, but we let one slip. But with the lead, we have to go in and take one of the two over there, and I think it will be really hard because they’re tough to beat at their home, but I think we can do it.
"The quicker we can win it, the better it will be for resting. In Game 7, you never know what’s going to happen, so we sure want to win that sixth game. But they’re going to be coming out flying, so we have to match their intensity and see what’s going on.
"We have to play the same way, just keep playing hard and leave everything on the ice."
Pelletier and the other players seem pretty pleased with their effort in the 5-1 win over the Americans in Game 5 on Saturday, but Coach Ruskowski said he thought there was a drop-off in their play toward the end of the game.
"The first part of the game, the first half or three-quarters, I thought was pretty good," he said. "We were moving the puck, we were getting timely goals. But we have to play a little bit better defensively. They're a really strong team, and if you don't play really good defense against them, they'll get numerous opportunities. They out-shot us pretty bad, mind you, but it came more or less in the second half where they were just throwing everything at us.
"We just have to be a patient hockey team, and if they throw a lot of things at us, we have to be patient and strong on our position and hopefully catch them in a 2-on-1 advantage."
With that in mind, defense was the main focus when the team watched tape and practiced yesterday. But that isn't the only thing Ruskowski thinks could be better.
"There are a couple things we needed to improve," he said. "We need to improve in the neutral ice area, we need to improve our breakouts and our penalty killing a little bit. We went over that, just to make sure everybody's on the same page and we're doing the right things at the right times."
Even when they haven't been doing things right, the Bucks have been able to count on Pelletier to bail them out more often that not, and Ruskowski thinks that his rookie netminder will need to keep playing just as well if the Bucks are going to win this series.
"He’s the guy that we’ve been counting on,” Ruskowski said. "I’ve said that every time you look at a team that’s successful in the playoffs, the first thing you look at is the goaltending, and he’s been pretty good for us and hopefully he can keep it.
"We need him to play brilliant for us to beat this team because they are a very good hockey team."
Pelletier, of course, doesn't take all the credit for his success, saying that his teammates have been doing a great job in front of him, even on nights that he faces 42 shots.
"They’ve been playing great," he said. "Even if I get a lot of shots, there’s a lot from the outside, not dangerous shots. The d-men always block them; even forwards step in and block the shots lie down, it’s really playoff hockey. The shot count doesn’t really indicate the score. It was 5-1; we scored five goals, but they were on really dangerous shots. We took advantage of our scoring chances."
As far as his own objectives, Pelletier says he just tries to compliment the game his defensemen are playing.
"I try to stop every single shot," he said. "My defensemen check a lot, they hit pretty hard, too, so I try to stop the puck and make plays so we step in front of their forecheckers and we don’t get hit as much as they do."
Obviously stopping every single shot is a very lofty goal, and one Pelletier has not been fortunate enough to achieve in his professional career. However, if he keeps the Americans to one, he can hope that the Bucks can get a couple to give themselves the win, and the best way Ruskowski thinks they can do that is on the power play.
"I'd like to have a lot of power-play goals," he said. "It's going to be a huge factor, that and penalty killing, because we've done a good job killing penalties, but we have to do a better job because they're going to change things around. They move the puck around really well, so we have to make sure we're taking the passing lanes away and try to take away time and space from them and make sure the front of the net is taken care of."
It's worth noting that the Bucks did not have a single power-play goal in the first three games of the series, then went 4-for-11 on the advantage between their Game 4 and Game 5 wins.
They have killed 88 percent (22-of-25) power plays they've faced.
Moving right along, whoever wins this series will be facing the Governors' Cup champion Odessa Jackalopes as they completed their series comeback by rallying to a 5-4 overtime win over the defending President's Cup champion Texas Brahmas last night.
Lee Scheide from the Odessa American has the story from that game, complete with a celebration photo.
The story includes some information that could affect the Bucks:
The Jackalopes now await the winner of the Laredo-Allen semifinal series. Laredo holds a 3-2 advantage heading into tonight’s Game 6 in Allen.
Either way, Odessa will open the Southern Conference Finals at 7:05 p.m. Friday at the Ector County Coliseum. Game 2 is scheduled for 7:05 p.m. Saturday.
If the Bucks do beat the Americans, tonight or tomorrow, the matchup with the Jackalopes will create quite a few scheduling conflicts at Laredo Energy Arena, which will be using its ice for Disney on Ice events next Thursday through Sunday and may also be hosting some other events earlier in the week.Obviously, this isn't something the Bucks want to focus on before they've actually clinched a spot in the Southern Conference Finals, but it is a scheduling concern for them, and for us at the paper, if things work out that way.
It also begs the question as to whether or not the Bucks will stay in North Texas after facing the Americans so they don't have to drive back to Laredo then up to Odessa for the weekend if they have a series starting against the Jackalopes on Friday.
I doubt anything about that scheduling past Game 2 will be revealed until after this series has ended, but I'll keep you posted if I get any information.
For more information about each conference semifinal series and the conference finals to come, you can check out today's CHL Shots from the Point.
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