Anton Khudobin stood at mid-ice, blushing, a huge smile on his face. He was the number-one star of the game for the Houston Aeros. But that’s not why he was blushing. He was blushing because, in unison, 3,189 fans inside of Toyota Center were singing “Happy Birthday” to the now 23-year-old native of Ust-Kamenogorsk, Kazakhstan.
“This is my best happy birthday of my life,” Khudobin said afterwards. “It is May 7, and I have never played hockey this late in the year. We played well, we got the 2-0 win and we now lead the series. I am very happy about that.”
And Khudobin was right to be happy. Thought to be the team’s weakest
link coming into the playoffs, Khudobin had just stopped 27 Milwaukee
shots to lead the Aeros to the 2-0 Game Four victory that puts the
Aeros just one game shy of advancing to the AHL’s Western Conference
Finals.
The Aeros grabbed the early 1-0 goal at 16:56 of the
first period when Benoit Pouliot, in perfect position in front of the
net, got a pass from Marco Rosa who came up from behind the net to draw
Milwaukee goalie Drew MacIntyre out of position, and put the puck in
the net.
“It started at the point, actually,” Pouliot said of
the shot. “[Clayton] Stoner went to make an out pass. I didn’t really
want to touch it, but Stoner made a great job to go back and get it. He
threw it in the corner, and I tried to crash the net as much as
possible because that’s what coach wants. And that’s what I did, and
Rosa just made a perfect pass to me in the open net.”
And that
was it for the scoring until there were two seconds remaining in the
game when Krys Kolanos got the puck into the empty net to make the
final score 2-0. But if not for the play of Khudobin in the net, the
Aeros would likely have not won this game, and likely would be trailing
Milwaukee in this series instead of being one game away from
advancing.
“That’s our playoffs right there. Anton,” Pouliot said. “He’s never really had an off game.”
“The
good news is that Anton’s done two things for me as a goalie,” head
coach Kevin Constantine said. “Number one is he’s responded to losses
with good outings. I think that’s a sign of a good goalie. And he’s
gotten better over the course of the last month where he’s played, so
he’s making adjustments to play at this level.”
So now the Aeros
have the 3-1 series lead over Milwaukee, with three chances to get one
more win. Game Five is Saturday night at 7:35 from Toyota Center. The
Aeros have been outplayed on offense and in many ways have been lucky
to get three wins. Lucky in terms of scoring goals. But the play of
Anton Khudobin has not been lucky. It’s been good. And last night,
Anton Khudobin was more than good.
“We didn’t want to wish him
“Happy Birthday” before the game,” Constantine said. “It was kind of
like you don’t say shutout in the middle of the game. But it’s a pretty
good birthday gift for him.”
But maybe it wasn’t Khudobin who
got the gift for his birthday. After his play last night, stopping 27
of 27 shots, maybe Khudobin instead gave everyone a birthday gift. The
gift of an Aeros victory.
This article appears in May 7-13, 2009.
