Aces, Danbury Pregame Thoughts

The heated rivalry between the Danbury Mad Hatters and Brooklyn Aces will reach its climax on Friday when the two teams face-off today at Aviator.

Forget the fact that the Hatters were eliminated from post-season play after New Jersey defeated the Bears in overtime last night. [EDIT 11:09- Danbury will be eliminated with a loss tonight or a New Jersey win on Saturday. My apologies. With some of these games canceled, it's become a rough to know how many games are actually left in the season.]

Something much bigger is at stake here.

Pride.

Always a heated contest, Brooklyn will nevertheless look to continue to fine tune their non-aggressive forecheck and play smart puck pursuit hockey. If they can, Danbury will have no problem rubbing shoulders, which should make for an excellent hockey game from start to finish.

With their last game of the season against the New Jersey Rockhoppers on Saturday, the Aces will also use this game to see what line combinations they’ll end up using during the post-season.

It seems that the “Three Amigos” line of Mike Christensen, Chris Holmes and Jesse Felten will get a shot to see if the chemistry is still there as the trio have been been shifted together several times as of late, but not yet on a regular basis.

Felten especially was happy to be reunited with his former linemates.

“It’s great that the Three Amigos are back,” he said with a laugh a few games ago. “I love playing with those guys.”

With Mike Thomson gone, the Aces will also have to see who will be able to pick up the slack and produce. Garnering three assists in his first game back with the team since early February and showing some mighty impressive stick-handling moves as well, it looks like Eddie Chlanda should get his fair share of ice-time over the next pair of games. If not, Tony Resendes has been his usual firecracker-self as of late and because of that, could earn himself an expanded role for the post-season.

The Aces defense, which played a huge part in the team’s success against Hudson Valley on Tuesday, thanks to a re-energized Doug Hoffman and Andrew Scampoli and some great play by Dan Carney, Rob Miller and Chris Robinson, who will also be tested. Can they continue to move the puck with the same efficiency against a much tougher team in Danbury? Can they generate offense and keep the puck low against Derek MacIntyre, a goaltender that shut them out the last time the two teams played?

If they can, the Aces will have passed one very huge test and will be ready for the post-season. If not, questions will arise in regards to just how good this team really is.

Photos by Patrick Hickey Jr.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.