Posts on ‘March 15th, 2009’

With two wins in their last two games, the Brooklyn Aces have seemingly put their struggles over the past month behind them and are looking increasingly ready for the playoffs.

That makes today’s game with the New Jersey Rockhoppers an incredibly interesting one, even though there’s no telling who the Aces will play in the post-season as of yet.

Currently only two points separate the Danbury Mad Hatters and New Jersey with both teams having only five games left to play. If you ask most fans in the league, they probably feel a series between the Aces and Mad Hatters would be great, as both teams aren’t on the friendliest terms with one another, making for a physical and emotional series. However, New Jersey is the better team of the two and if they would play Brooklyn, the quality of the games would be better than if Danbury reached the post-season.

After clinching the top seed in the EPHL on Friday, the Brooklyn Aces continued to dominate last night, defeating the Hudson Valley Bears 9-3.

“Just were having fun out there,” said Aces forward Mike Christensen. “We were smiling and working hard. We started out slow, but we rebounded well.”

Despite the fact that the Aces were the aggressors through the early going, Hudson Valley got on the board at 2:56 on a harmless wrister Elvis Tominovic that made it through a screen by, giving the Bears a 1-0 lead. After the goal, the game began to take a more physical and frenetic pace; definitely not what most would have expected before the game.

However, at 8:54, a Christensen slapper with the puck on edge from the top of the left circle with the man advantage beat Hudson Valley goaltender Peter Maro [18 saves in the first period], tying the game at 1-1. After several minutes of free-flowing and physical hockey, a beautiful Jesse Felten wrap-around after a Dan Carney shot from the point with 47.6 seconds left broke the stalemate and put Brooklyn in the driver’s seat going into the second period.