A slow start and a suspect first two periods sunk the Manitoba Moose.
The Houston Aeros scored twice in a span of 34 seconds to break a deadlock and cruised to a 4-2 win over the Moose before a crowd of 5,851 last night at the MTS Centre.
With the loss, the Moose fell to 1-1 and settled for a series split.
"The most important shift is the one after a goal. When they score two in a row that takes the air out of your balloon and you're just deflated after that," said Moose centre Marco Rosa, who scored his second goal in as many games. "In the first two periods, we just sat back and let them take it to us. They created and we didn't. Finally in the third period, we decided to play. We're disappointed. It's definitely something we have to learn from. It's not acceptable that we sit back and wait for things to happen."
Moose head coach Scott Arniel was flustered by his teams slow start.
"Ugly. For two periods we were spectators and didn't want to get involved," said Arniel. "You can't play one period in any league and hope to have success."
Moose captain Mike Keane scored a highlight-reel short-handed marker on a breakaway in the first period and has two goals and an assist to lead his team in scoring.
"If you take the first two periods and the last period, we were a different hockey team," said Keane. "It's a learning process. Everyone knows the expectations here, not just winning games but going out and working hard. As a group, we're not happy with what happened. We're not happy with the way the game ended (Friday) night and we're not happy about the way we started tonight."
Peter Zingoni scored twice to pace the Aeros attack, Snow Flake product Justin Falk scored the game-winner and Clayton Stoner scored into an empty net with 26.8 seconds left to round out the scoring, while Anton Khudobin was solid between the pipes, turning aside 26 shots.
Cory Schneider made 23 saves for the Moose in a losing effort.
HOOF PRINTS: Arniel made one change to his line-up, inserting enforcer Matt McCue for Olivier Latendresse on the fourth line.
McCue dropped the gloves on his fifth shift with Aeros forward Craig Weller.
ken.wiebe@sunmedia.ca
