From the Rampage Desk: Major Roster Moves on the Road

The Rampage finished off week one of the Rodeo Road Trip still looking for a win but managed a couple of regulation ties at least. Scoring is still an issue but it’s gotten slightly better over the past 3 games. The main news of the week is a slew of roster moves including 7 yesterday as the Avs continue to get slaughtered by injuries.

Roster News

– Last Thursday Nail Yakupov broke STL defenseman Joel Edmundson’s arm and so Chris Butler was summoned to the NHL. The Rampage didn’t make a corresponding move right away.

– On Sunday, The Rampage did call up Nolan De Jong from the Eagles although it was short-lived. He was sent back down yesterday leaving them with 6 Ds again.

– Oskar Sundqvist’s rehab assignment ended after Monday’s game in Iowa and he was recalled to the Blues.

– J-C Beaudin was called up from the Eagles to take Sundqvist’s place

– For reasons unknown, Duncan Siemens was called up to the Avalanche and Andrei Mironov re-assigned

– Late last night Rocco Grimaldi was summoned to Denver after Matt Nieto was injured in practice.

– The Rampage once again countered by calling up Brady Shaw from the Eagles

– Tage Thompson was re-assigned by the Blues this morning

Injuries

– Alex Belzile has been scratched the last two games with an unknown injury and will not be available through the weekend

– Vlad Kamenev has been on the trip skating with the team and had been scheduled to start tonight against his old team Milwaukee. Alas, the doctors said no and he won’t be available through the weekend as well.

– Jordan Schmaltz has been in San Antonio rehabbing an LBI and joined the Rampage to practice today. Not sure how close he is.

– Not an injury but Klim Kostin has been suspended one game for a hit to the head vs Iowa Monday

Lineup

Here’s Monday’s lineup:

Ranford – Aggz – Rocco
Blais – Sundqvist – Petryk
Vogelhuber – Girard – Kostin
Nantel – Musil – St-A

Duncan – Meloche
Bigras – Warsofsky
Mason – Graham

Husso/Martin

Scratch: De Jong, Belzile
Injured: Kamenev, Schmaltz

Additions: Thompson, Beaudin, Shaw, Mironov

Should be interesting to see how the staff make all these changes for tonight. Bigras and Meloche play together a lot late in games so maybe they go full time and Wars gets to keep an eye on Miro. The lines could be anything and it wouldn’t surprise me.

Weekly Recap

Goals for: 10
Goals against: 15

Shots for: 125
Shots against: 141

PP: 1/16 (6.3%)
PK: 16/21 (71.4%)

Shot share: 47%
Sh%: 8%
Sv%: 89%
PDO: 973

Shot generation was a lot better than it has been recently, it’s odd there’s such a difference between how the Pacific Division teams play vs the Central. Suppression seems to be a hallmark of the Pacific clubs while the Central teams like to play more wide open. Shooting percentage is a little low but not out of the ordinary. Save percentage was bad compared to January when both goalies were really stout and that’s the main driver of the low PDO.

One power play goal in 16 chances really stands out as something that’s killing the Rampage. They had 7 chances vs Iowa on Monday and went 0-for in a 1-goal game. Not good. As with 5v5 play they really struggle to get the puck in between the dots for scoring chances and opponents are fine with them lobbing away from the perimeter.

San Antonio is now 0-3-2 on this years Rodeo Road Trip so far and haven’t won a February road game since 2016. They sit in 6th place in the Pacific and have hemorrhaged points over the past 2 weeks. Everyone goes through poor stretches but this is where they have to find a way to pull themselves out of a nosedive.

Schedule

Tonight vs Milwaukee 8pm ET
Saturday vs Chicago 8pm ET
Sunday vs Rockford 5pm ET

 

Thanks to the San Antonio Rampage for the feature photo and AHL.com for the stats